Lure of Swedish love affair

By BRENDA WARD

I'd never been one for Swedish blonds. I'd had a few dashing Brits (a TR6, assorted Spitfires and an MG) and I'd even had a brief affair with a Teutonic hunk (Mercedes 350SL).

But it was a dark, dark day when that stylish silver Merc began to billow clouds so thick you'd think James Bond had hit the smokescreen button. Pass me another gadget please, Q. I need a four-seater convertible.

Yes! I thought when the white '87 Saab 900 Turbo convertible taunted me from across the caryard. Turbo-boosted, four seats, attitude with a capital A.

No! I thought a week later as I tried to reverse out of an angle carpark - no quarter-light vision. No! I thought, as I floored it on a passing lane and waited three seconds for the turbo to kick in - no guts.

No! I thought as I hit a bump and a bone-rattling scuttle-shake rocked the car - I wanted to be stirred, not shaken. Oh dear, the car of my dreams had driven straight out of a Stephen King novel.

But I gritted my teeth and somehow three months later, I was in love. Completely, utterly. In Love.

I mastered the rev range where the turbo rocketed in and got used to reversing with my mirrors. Now I drive that car 200m to the corner store.

Need a lift to Tauranga? No problem, climb in. And the commute to work is bliss. Top down, jazz in the CD stacker, take-out coffee tucked in the storage box as the waterfront unravels beside me.

That strangely funky body shape has become totally adorable, the whine of the turbo has become somehow musical and the leather seat wraps round me as we breeze through traffic.

Then God called. The new Saab 9-3 convertible was being launched in Scandanavia. Someone had to go to Denmark for a long weekend to drive it, and that someone was me.

Who better to compare a classic convertible with the space-age high-tech sex machine it had become than a woman who could scarcely bear to be parted from her car for an oil change and tune?

I packed my sunglasses, cap and sunscreen and knew I really needed nothing else. But somehow everything else still seemed to fill a substantial suitcase.

The 9-3 convertible was tantalisingly parked on the cobbles outside the hotel in Copenhagen as we arrived, alluring in its mystery. Come and get me, it was whispering, but I resolutely closed my ears to its entreaties until the official drive programme next day.

I circled the vehicle warily, assessing it in view of what had happened in car design over a couple of decades.

There had been a softening of lines, a lowering and broadening that in the Saab 9-3 convertible had been translated into a blurring of the wedginess that's such a big part of the vehicle's personality. It was still there, but more subtle, with the loss of the traditional rear overhang into a deep and chunky closure. Purists would call it selling out. The car's designers call it compromise. I say it works. Life's two great rules. You should never drive a car that's prettier than you are, or wear ski-gear better than you can ski.

Only a fabulous Swedish blonde would break the first rule in this car, which has had a testosterone jab to address its gender bias.

Reaction to the car started within minutes of pulling out of the hotel, as an Indian taxi driver wildly careered across the lanes behind to pull up beside us. Behind his upturned thumb he was grinning whitely from ear to ear.

Half a kilometre down the road, it was the turn of a carload of mid-20s lads in a Volkswagon Polo, waving and laughing and calling.

Male drivers almost unanimously took a second look at the Catalina Margarita-yellow launch car, flavoured to stand out in a country of conservatively coloured vehicles.

In town the 9-3 was deft and confident as we followed the satellite navigator's instructions around the Copenhagen streets, from the rococo royal palaces of Amalienborg, home to Denmark's royal family, to the docks where giant liners towered over the quaint shops.

At lights, the car could blitz pretty much anything as the turbo endlessly and smoothly accelerated away. The jolt of my 900's turbo kicking in receded to a distant (and embarrassing) memory. Weaving through the lanes was easy, the steering light and nimble, responsive to the lightest guidance.

"In 200 metres make a right turn. In 100 metres make right turn. Make a right turn." The navigation was handy in the city centre, although its assessment of what constitutes "straight" and what is a "slight turn" was wildly inconsistent, once sending us into a taxi rank.

The next day, we crossed the multi-laned 8km bridge into Sweden for a cruise across the south of the country. Through wooded winding country lanes and gently rolling farmland, the 9-3 was steady and unsurprising, its five-speed automatic transmission changing seamlessly in Drive, or sparky in the Saab Sentronic manual gear selection (also available as optional steering wheel buttons).

A fellow driver got to test the self-repairing bumper when a wild boar tore across the road, its flank clipping his car. The bumper instantly resumed its previous shape with just a scrape on the black rubber replaceable insert showing where the beast had brushed with death. The driver looked rather more shaken.

A wayward navigation instruction sent half the fleet down a rutted unsealed country lane that quickly turned into a track, but the diversion quickly turned out to be a bonus. Here the 9-3 coped with aplomb in four-wheel-driveland, proving its competence on the kind of roads often thrown at a New Zealander. I predict it'll handle Ministry of Works and Development's toughest gravel obstacle courses just fine.

"Headroom: 30,000 feet." "The wind in your hair." "Raising the roof with the hood down." Hear the cliches and believe them. Driving a convertible - there's nothing quite like it. We only put the top up once, in light drizzle, and the air conditioning kept us pleasantly comfortable

As I pulled back into the hotel carpark, I gave the steering wheel an affectionate stroke. See you in 20 years, baby, when I can afford you.

* Due to a rush of blood to the head, Brenda Ward is selling her Saab 900 convertible. All inquiries to brenda_ward@nzherald.co.nz