Even though I live in Saab-friendly Colorado and I still see plenty of Trollhättan machinery in the local yards, it has been more than three years since we last admired a discarded vehicle from the Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget in this series ( a 99 two-door). Here’s a base 900 two-door hatchback (or three-door hatchback, if you prefer), found in a Denver-area yard.
If you’re a Saab fanatic looking for parts, don’t get too excited about this car. I shot these photos in April of 2022 and U-Pull-&-Pay crushes cars after about three months in the inventory. I try to write about the more interesting stuff before it gets crushed, but it’s not always possible.
Saab began building cars with the 92 in 1949, with US sales beginning the following year. Kurt Vonnegut claimed to have owned the first American Saab dealership, but the author’s Saab Cape Cod appears to have been the second Saab store established here. There were US-market 93s, 95s, 96s, Sonetts and 99s after that, with the introduction of the 99 as a 1969 model making the brand seem a little less oddball.
This car made it past the 200,000-mile mark during its career, which is very good for a mid-1980s European car (that is neither a Volvo nor a Mercedes-Benz, that is). I have yet to find a discarded Saab that reached 300,000 miles; a 290,699-mile 900, a 278,455-mile 900S and a 277,443-mile 900 came closest.
The 900, introduced as a 1979 model, made Saab a mainstream brand in the United States. Then that 99-based car became antiquated, the company partnered with Fiat to build the weak-selling 9000, GM bought the company and Opelized its products, Saabarus and SaaBlazers happened, then bankruptcy, then more bankruptcy, then purchase by Spyker, then more bankruptcy, yet more bankruptcy, then the ghost of Saab haunted Chinese boardrooms for years. The final US-market Saabs were 2011 models; I’ve managed to find a junkyard ’11 9-3, but the 9-4X continues to elude my camera. Anyway, Trollhättan still looks like a nice place, so the Swedes have that going for them.
In 1985, though, things looked pretty good for Saab in the United States. This car had an MSRP of $12,585 ($36,647 in 2025 dollars) and it offered more cargo space than the BMW 733i, the Volvo 240 and the Audi 5000 combined (so claims the brochure, though its fine print states that the rear seats must be folded down to get that much room).
1985 was the first model year for the DOHC H engine in US-market Saabs. This 2.0 was rated at 110 horsepower and 119 pound-feet.
The H engine was a redesign of the old Triumph Slant-4 of TR7 fame, originally developed for use in the Saab 99 and Triumph Dolomite. Production of the H continued all the way through 2010, after which the Ecotec took over.
1985 Saab 900 owners could get the base five-speed manual or pay $400 more ($1,228 after inflation) for a three-speed automatic. This car has the five-speed, with the E marked on the shifter’s overdrive fifth gear to indicate efficiency.
It’s rusty, though not catastrophically so.
We can assume that the 2022 resale value for a non-turbocharged mid-1980s 900 wasn’t great, and the manual transmission plus high miles would have scared off pandemic-era car shoppers looking for cheap beater fourth cars.
It appears that its final owner was an employee of the Gilpin Casino up in Black Hawk.
Richard Deane’s dealership on South Colorado Boulevard in Denver was founded in 1959 and existed well into the 1990s. It’s a BMW dealership now. Naturally, this emblem now lives on my garage wall.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
1985 Saab 900 in Colorado junkyard.
[Images: The Author]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
