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Bruce Beauvais
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tedm
Tim, his brother, I think, used to be the main man for the US saab club. Good people.
What became the SAAB club was started by Dick Grossman of Chicago as the Compact Fornt-wheel Drive Club of Amercia. Dick embraced SAAB but also Citroen, Simca and the other oddball FWD Cars. When he founded it these were the only FWD cars in the US other than the Toronado/Eldorado platforms. It was really just a monthly newsletter. It had lost of contributions from owners. A printed forum, so to speak.
Dick sold it to Jeff Delahorne. Jeff sold it to Tim when he took a PR/Museum job at SAAB in Sweden. Tim ran it in the 80's and early 90's. Tim turned the club in a more prfessional direction and expanded the closer ties with SAAB USA that Jeff forged He sold it to the guy in Ohio where it was last I checked.
Dick Grossman had a profound hatred of GM. He really slammed GM's efforts- like the X-cars. Rightfully so, it turned out. We were all suprised not to see him spin out of his grave when GM first bought into SAAB, much less full ownership. We hope that he's resting in peace now that Spyker owns it. I'm not sure about the rest of us.
Re Saab Club
Newsletter---not "Saab Club"
My memory was that Dick "bestowed" the mailing list to Delahorne, later when Delahorne got some job as a janitor (or some such responsibility-less job. I spoke with him several times as he passed himself off and alluded to that he was "rally liaison" or "competition department manager " or some such horseshit which was kinda odd since he was sniffing about for Saab Sport and Rally Parts which I could "supply" him in exchange for "real favorable articles..." ) in Connecticut
(being monolingual and not knowing shit from Shinola, nor knowing how to close his hand around a wrench without injuring himself and damaging something, I cannot fathom what he would do in Trollhattan. Plus nobody there ever heard of him),
Delahorne attempted to auction off the mailing list "bids starting at $24,000" at some Annual Meet---and was taken into a room and I quote "Read the riot act", and "Explained the mailing list was not his to auction off" and seemingly reluctantly it was plopped into Winker's lap ---and promptly became 50% reprints of Saab TSBs about "seat belt buzzer relay malfunction" or "fawkin ash try nearing full senor and diving klaxon main power relay interface" of current 9000s and the rest the questionable artwork (nothing wrong really with his elaborate pen and ink style if you like mid 50s retro style), but they did nothing the drawings and photos in a Haynes Manual already did) of Jack Ashcraft illustrating downright bad advice and some questioned the basic reprinting and simplifying of the Saab service manual in exchange for advertisements amounting to 1/3 the "Newsletter" .
And when Tim had lost all interestin the Newsletter, and after doubling, then doubling again the subscription rates, and sending half the issues then only intermittantly, he lost all interest and passed the list over to a classic Intra-webs type I mean
central casting "nerd-Injur-near"
A Saab tale of decay following Saabs fluctuations.
A shame so much of Saab Sweden's problems stemmed from bad decisions of Saab USA---since USA was so central in export sales which was 75% of production by the late 70s.
