SAAB expands: can an SUV built in moraine, Ohio, USA, be a bona-fide SAAB? Well, the division of general motors is finding out as it expands the brand with an SUV that has its roots in a platform engineered for Chevrolet and other domestic nameplates but set upon by Swedish engineers and designers

Here’s something you don’t often hear regarding a well-known* auto brand: with the addition of the 9-7X, Saab has expanded its entire lineup to four vehicles (9-2X, 9-3, 9-5 are the others). Arguably, one of the reasons why there has been a limited number of vehicles coming from Saab is based on a Catch-22 situation: volume is needed to make enough money to engineer new products; new products are needed to achieve the volumes necessary to make the money that can be used to engineer them. So in the case of the 9-7X, it is building on the work originally performed for the Chevy (TrailBlazer), GMC (Envoy) and Olds (Bravada; subsequently reformed into the Buick Rainier) midsize SUVs. There were a couple of key considerations behind this move:

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