It’s be a bit of a slog getting the Nocturne Blue Aero back up to scratch, but with the help of a few, very clever Saab friends, the 9-5 passed it’s MOT last weekend and feels like it’s well on the way to a full recovery. When I bought it from Peter Raw, it was purchased as a spares car, great engine, rebuilt Turbo, and fast, bloody fast, but it wasn’t a car I planned to rescue.

We got it up on the ramp, and besides visible neglect for many years, it was a solid car, no gaping holes or disintegrating sub frames, just serviceable parts that hadn’t been serviced; brakes with so much wear they’d stopped stopping, lowering springs that had literally fallen apart, cracked DI pack, incorrect plugs, split gaiters and hoses, and numerous parts that hadn’t seen a spanner or fresh oil for way too long.

We set about working nights and weekends to fix a long list of issues, many that are usually overlooked on regular servicing, but now all done. We’d spent a few weekends on it, when a curveball hit us, it lost 5th gear, again, possibly due to many years of driving at sub optimal conditions, boosting hard in 5th gear, too much torque, and it just disintegrated. Luckily, another absolute Saab genius offered to fix the broken gear and all is well again.

The list is long, and never cheap, but decided the Saab was way too good to use as a donor car:

Neo Front 314mm Big Brake Upgrade kit
Genuine Saab Rear Vented Brake Discs and pads
New Eibach lowering springs
Steering Rack gaiters
Fuel filter
Rear rose bush
Genuine DI pack
Correct Aero spark plugs
Front low and main beam bulb upgrades
Auxiliary belt and idler pulley
Full service, oil, filters, brake fluid

It’s one of these cars that looks great from a distance, but get close and you’ll see it’s had a hard life, the interior has cleaned up amazingly well, but the bodywork isn’t fantastic, some areas of surface corrosion, including a few holes in the usual places, faded panels, and a few dents here and there, but here’s the thing, now it’s mechanically sorted, I kind of love the idea of it not being perfect, it’s a sleeper, an utterly sorted and genuinely exciting Saab to drive around in. With 340+ hp on tap, a manual gearbox and super limited slip diff, it’s an absolute smile inducing machine, and because it’s not perfect, I’m not precious about it, it wants and needs to be driven.