Saab 9-5 Sportcombi 2001 test drive-2005 hatchback

Transport aviation

Aero. Mechanics. ESP. Three precious components of the driver of a cocktail, promising to be as strong as safe. The crown of creation of engineers of Saab, the result of the half -century evolution of Swedish machines. And all these ambitions are unexpectedly concluded inside the body with the utilitarian name of the station wagon.

However, if you think about the compartment and hot hatchbacks, if not banal, they are certainly not original. The high -speed sedans are excessively classic and conservative, so you will brush off such a car at the hired driver. But sportswear is already something new. To some extent, a paradox: a car for transporting goods with a shocking temperament. He emphasizes the practicality of the owner and at the same time can be regarded as a rebellious call to society. Germany was the estate of super -powerful universals, where social correctness turned out to be on one side of the scales, and on the other magnificent roads without speed limits. Of course, the 9-5 Aero Wagon will not stole the S6 Avant, 540i Touring or E 55AMG T, but the competition will be able to make modifications more modifies. And do not forget that this is a front -wheel drive car that imposes restrictions on its limiting dynamic capabilities. The same Germans have long been cultivating the rear and all-wheel drive schemes.

The aesthetics of the car are impeccable. And this despite the fact that it was obtained from the sedan through minimal surgical intervention, the back pair of doors remained unchanged at all. The shape of the side glasses of the luggage compartment in an exquisite way is echoing with the shape of the rear lights and the front turns, and thanks to the gland of the body racks, the entire architecture of the stern seems to be born in a fit of air flowing. Which is not so far from the truth: the coefficient of aerodynamic resistance is 0.31. This is a real handsome man, and ask me which car is more spectacular about four doors or about five, I, without hesitation, will vote for the station wagon. By the way, South German cars, as one, look much simpler and more boring.

By the level of equipment, this Aero Wagon is almost Full OPSHN. Complete electrical, leather, clime, bixenon headlights. Sports seats and aluminum decoration. Here you can find a lot of electronic safety systems, pillows and even active headrests Sahr. But two star attractions of the car are hidden under the hood and lid of the trunk. Yes, 250 horsepower to date are considered a maximum of reasonable for the front -wheel drive scheme (the absolute record belongs to Cadillac Allante with its 294 horses). However, the Aero version of the version, but its moment characteristic, is not at all in power. The Overboost function, perfectly familiar to Fans of Streetreising, which allows you to press the accelerator pedal for twenty seconds, increased boost pressure from one to one and a half bars, and the amount of torque from 350 to 370 nm.

What is located at the Aerosaab from behind is called an aerobagazer. We are talking about a system for fixing cargo Cargotracks, borrowed from transport aircraft. In a different way, probably, it should not be in an artificial weightlessness of the suitcases will have to be tight. Professional fasteners are phenomenally hardy according to representatives of the company, you can hang 9-5 Wagon to the cranes for it! In our car there was no more chip of the ranging ramp that we saw on the Mercedes Vaneo. This amazingly convenient and practical gizmo is included in the options catalog. Yes, and in no case do not try, having seen enough advertising booklets, to transport your favorite dog in the trunk. Squirrel and arrow were already in history.

Are we flying? We fly! Of course, we fly, but not in the city. In this crowd, and even on slippery coating, you have a continuous disappointment. At the bottom, the motor is apathetic, and the connection of the reanimating agent in the form of a turbine is wrapped in a slip, which is instantly extinguished by electronics. The engine loses momentum, and it all starts again. Funny dozens of dozens go to the right and left, pouring snow and dirt. The spectacle is magnificent and miserable at the same time. Not to mention the fact that each start is accompanied by an obsessive thought: no matter how much a shortage of torque is so acute in the hopeless zone of the tachometer. I remembered the 9-5 Aero sedan with an automatic box with longing. Yes, let the Japanese automatic violate the national purity of the car, let it have no sequential regime, let him not know the catapulting from his place! Let! But there are no problems with touching and moving a slow course, when the health and life of the clutch falls under the real threat. By the way, automatic versions have its own charm, the Sport button, which changes the sensitivity of the electronic accelerator. Try it, you won’t regret it!

Another thing is prospectus, leading to freedom from captivity of all kinds of ring. Here Aero Wagon is inaccessible. The engine swallows the lower gears with the lightning rumber of the hameleon tongue, and only about ten seconds after turning on the third, it is possible to relax a bit. True, if you completely ignore the speedometer showing the deprivation of rights. The craving of the motor is crazy in any gear, and excellent brakes allow it to abuse it.

The first series of turns caused a sigh of regret. I have already tried several 9-5 Aero from the principle, and they all differ in a very light wheel. Excessively light. It is clear that the markets of state and Canada are priority for Saab Automobile, but still if you start from the feeling of the steering wheel, it seems that you are leading something like Renault Clio, but not a two-ton wagon. It seems that everything is in order and accuracy and the speed of steering, the side departments are completely absent, but there is not enough feedback. Very disappointing. The complete feeling that you are behind the glass wall a step from the ideal.

The smoothness of the course has always been a skate of nine and fifth. This also applies to Aero with its reconfigured suspension. Perhaps, among the Swedish sportspacks I have met, one of the most comfortable, even despite the 45 percent height of the tire profile. But you still need to protect the rubber on the pits.
The very fact of the appearance of a station wagon with a crowned griffin on the hood is an epoch -making event, almost a sensation. It is enough to say that so far this has happened only twice in 1959 and 1998. Let's hope that there is no mathematical pattern here, and we will not have to wait for the new cargo -passenger Saab for the next forty years.

The car is provided by General Motors CIS.

Text: Leonid Klyuyev
Photo: Roman Ostanin