One of the greatest pleasures of saving these amazing Saab Aeros, is the shear joy of getting to drive and enjoy them all. The Graphite Green 9-5 hasn’t been an easy one, and the concerns over the oil light returning after this last bottom end replacement, has been in the back of my mind. So best thing to do was put some miles in and reassure myself if wasn’t going to happen again. After some 500 miles and a lot of joy, I’m feeling exceptionally happy I stuck with this one and we’ve finally got there; no oil light.

As ever though, it’s an iterative process, and there’s always something to take care of, so on Saturday, we had another round of fettling, we fixed a slight hesitation in acceleration, which turned out the be a boost pipe that had come loose and the dump value not fitted quite correctly. We also changed over the worn, sliding arm rest for an almost immaculate one, and secured some loose wiring for the front fog lamps.

There’s also been a slight whine since the rebuild, and we’ve narrowed it down to a noisy alternator. Hopefully this can be exchanged soon and the Saab returned to peek driving condition. Once again, I can’t help but respect the 9-5 Aero, it’s super smooth, powerful and calming on longer journeys, but press on, and it turns in to a smile inducing sport saloon that handles beautifully with it’s modified suspension, upgraded brakes and new Michelin Pilot Sport 4 rubber. It’s hard to believe it’s over 20 years old really, the quality shines through and feels every bit as special as modern executive cars; just better looking of course.