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From your Club President
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The snow if finally over and now let spring begin. We take for granite the wonderful weather we experience in this lovely state. Where else can you have rain, snow and a hour later it is clear blue sky. a excuse to get outside, do yard work, wash your cars go to the mountains and partake of the summer festivities.
This summer I plan to enjoy the outdoors.
I love driving my old Saabs on weekends. My favorite is the 1964 Bull Nose. When I drive, I notice people always looking at me usually with a smile. I have people give me the thumbs up sign. When I am at a red light, I have had people roll the win- dow down to comment on the car. People recognize the brand. Even if they don't there are badges on the car, Saab on the hub caps and the Saab on the mud flaps.
I have the bare minimum muffler pack on the 2 stroke giving it a very loud burble sound of what a two cycle engine should sound like. It is loud and I love it. It turns heads.
The June 11h meeting will be held at 7PM at the Breckenridge Brewery at 5th and Lipan in Den- ver. Agenda includes upcoming CP car show, Project Colleen, Membership, Trivia, Top Gear video and Simeone Museum Presentation
Get out and drive your Saabs this sum- mer and enjoy what Colorado has to offer.
(Photo by Charles Stoyer)
by Larry Beetham (photos by Charles Stoyer)
I apologize that the minutes from the April meeting were submitted to the previous newsletter, here are the previous minutes from February for publication.
– Larry
President Jerry Danner opened the meeting at
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Breckenridge Brewery with the introduction of new SAAB Club members (Please pardon if any spelling is wrong): Dave Finley from Cheyenne, WY. , who is restoring his 1968 96 Deluxe, Shane Kroening. Barry Nash- who is back to the club after a long ab-
sence. Gavin Morris who owns a ’90 SPG Tal- ladega, and Jesse Strack who owns a ’78 99. Also Bob and Alex Rand arrived later from Ft. Collins, they currently have 3 SAABs and have had 50 over the years.
Membership Chairman, Tom Nelson recently purged the RMSC roster from 200+ members to ap-
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proximately 120. We are now get- ting new sub- scribers and we have members from Calgary to Costa Rica. The roster will be available to members in our Yahoo group list. By show of hands there are approximately 15 members on Fa- cebook out of 36
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present at tonight’s meeting and Tom raised the thought of potential migration to Facebook some- time in the future.
Announcement was made that the Simeon Museum in Philadelphia PA has a special exhibit: “The SAAB Spirit Lives On. From February 23- March
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17, 2013. The website for more information is: simeonmuseum.org.
For special events, Paul Bottone announced that Saturday, March 9th the club would be working on Project Colleen installing the transmission at Mile Hi, the Denver Auto Show in March, and the 30th annual Cerebral Palsy Car Show at Arapahoe Com- munity College is on June 9th.
Other current projects possibly in the works are ICE racing in Georgetown, painting vintage cars, a high
by Larry Beetham (photos by Charles Stoyer) (continued)
speed raceway event, and a trip to the Gateway Mu- seum on Labor Day weekend.
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Jerry Danner gave an update on Project Colleen, our ‘91 900 Turbo. The previous owner will be at the work party in March to help and she is glad to see the car is being “kept alive”.
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Miles Bendixson told us about how he procured his new 2011 9-5 through Doug Crane in Knoxville, TN. It is Laser Red with a 6-speed manual transmis- sion and may be the last new manual in the U.S.; he was adamant about having a manual transmission.
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Tom mentioned a group we have for the NG 9-5s and that we have 5 currently in the club
Jerry mentioned that parts for the newer cars do have availability and are coming in which is much more positive than previous news.
Paul Bottone reviewed the club merchandise that is available for purchase.
Bob Buck updated the status on his ’69 96 DeLuxe and that it needs a new transmission since his is stuck in freewheeling. To achieve building suitable replacements for some of the recent 96’s Bob and Larry had a good time tearing down 5 transmissions in Jerry’s back room for future work on putting some good ones back together.
Larry presented pictures of his ’70 96 from Bill Searcy’s collection. It has not had much work done on it since it was started late last summer, but was moved into the garage on Super Bowl Sunday in preparation for removing the driver’s door and eventually the engine and tranny rebuilds.
Dave Snyder and Glen Clark had information on their project to convert a ’72 99 into an electric car using a 30 HP AC motor and have (had?) a goal to have it running in April. In the paperwork Dave discovered that this vehicle was originally pur- chased from Jim Beetham’s Greeley dealership.
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What happens when you restore a car? Jerry stated that people are holding on to their cars longer in this economy, the 164 cars serviced at Mile Hi last month had average mileage of 123,800 miles. Jerry showed pictures of 4 of his salvaged cars going to the crusher and the process of the recycling. This story was published in the Jan-Feb 2013 newsletter that these minutes should have been in!
Respectfully (and belatedly!) submitted, Larry Beetham, Secretary – RMSC of Colorado
C900 Broken Key Removal
by Charles Stoyer
My wife and I were out in the Ragtop (1993 Classic 900 CV) and she was driving as I had
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just had surgery. We were using the genuine original SAAB key. Just as we were about to leave Costco to come home, the key broke off. Now what?
We do have a spare key—at home, but how to get home. Well, put the key pieces in and hope for the best!
The car started and away we went and made it home.
Now, you can still start the car with the key stub and we do have a spare key for locking the trunk and such, but it would be really nice to get the broken key section out and get a new key.
Mile Hi Body Shop does have a machine to make keys for these vintage Saabs from the AC code (a code like AC-1234). Using the VIN number, the dealer can furnish the AC code if you can’t get it off one of the locks. By the way, this does not work if the ignition switch has been replaced and some of them have been after coke or something is spilled into the switch down there between the con- sole.
Of course, the transmission must be in reverse and the switch turned totally off, otherwise the key will not come out under any circum- stances. I found out the key was magnetic but a magnet did not pull the broken section out. I tried tape of several kinds trying to stick the key stub and the broken section back togeth- er—no luck.
Dental picks! They should work! Well, one will not work (and I have had rotator cuff sur- gery so my right arm is in a sling…) so I get my wife and a friend to try to get the key out—no luck.
But my friends are coming for breakfast on Thursday and one of them, Phil, is an engi- neer/inventor—they can get it out!
Dental picks still do not work. So Phil says, do you have some fine wire. I think and the E string from a guitar comes to mind. Pack rat that I am, I always save these. The small E string is 0.012” or 0.305 mm and quite stiff.
I give Phil the string and a pair of small nee- dle nose pliers and he goes to work.
A few minutes later: He shows us the broken key section!
I used my HP scanner to show a picture of the E-string/wire, with hook detail along with the broken key.
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I sure am glad I save my old guitar strings!
Dan's New Toy
by Jerry Danner
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Dan's got a new toy!! Dan Boll- schweiler from Mile Hi Body Shop is into drag racing. He owns a 1972 Saab Sonett Drag Racing car. The Sonett turns in the mid 11 seconds. Dan wife Cathy is the driver of their car. She wanted to go faster. The off season Dan & Cathy picked up a rail drag car with- out a engine. These cars usually have a V-8 engine. Dan wanted to put a 4 cyl Saab turbocharged engine but was over ruled by Cathy. Cathy purchased a 454CI Chevy engine and Dan mounted the engine in the car. They only have two weekends of racing on the rail car. Cathy is very happy because she is now turning mid 9 seconds in the quarter mile.
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On June 9th, the Rocky Mountain SAAB Club en- joyed a perfect cloudless day at the 30th annual Colo- rado Concours, which benefits Cerebral Palsy of Col- orado. Held every June on the vast lawn at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, all matter of Euro- pean, Asian and American sports cars converge for one of the finest car shows in the state. This year’s event honored the 50th anniversary of the introduc- tion of the Porsche 911, which was the featured mark and model of the show.
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Our club brought out a record 16 SAABs this year, representing vin- tages from 1964
through 2011. Club President, Jerry Danner, brought out three 96’s; a gray 1964 Bullnose, his green ’67 stroker that looks like new, and a pale yellow ’73 V4. Tom Nelson brought both his
red 1974 Sonett III and his Diamond Sil- ver 2011 New Gen
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9.5 Turbo 4. Bob Buck parked next to Tom’s 97 with his yellow 1973 Sonett
III. Miles Bendixson took a spot next to Tom at the other end of our chronological- ly arranged row with his red 2011 New Gen 9.5. Jim Beeth- am also graced our field with three cars. The SAABs were his Rose Quartz 1988 900 Turbo and his
black 1998 9000 CSE Turbo, both impeccably main- tained. (More on the third car later.) Speaking of im- peccable, Bruce Harbison showed his 1977 99 EMS in Cardinal Red Metallic, and Charles Harper was back in black with his 2010 9.3 Convertible. Some first-timers (or long-time-sincers) this year were John Clary with his 1985 Rose Quartz 900 Turbo, Paul Bottone with his 2011 Java colored 9.3, Darco Dragozov with his Amola Red 1995 9000 Aero and Robert Rand with his white 1993 900 Turbo Convert-
ible. My 1968 Sonett V4 was invited to park in the Founder’s Favorites circle; this year for sports cars of the same era as the original Porsche 911. It was an honor for my Sonett to be included among some very fine and expensive automobiles, like the Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing, an E-Type Jag, a split-widow
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Stingray and a Ferrari 330, among several others. Alt- hough I’m proud of my Sonett, I did feel a bit like I’d arrived at a formal dinner wearing blue jeans and a wife beater.
Head judge Bruce Harbison and assistant judge Steve McCoy meticulously inspected the four SAABs en- tered to be judged. After much scrutiny and a tally of points, they awarded the following ribbons. In the 9000 class, first place went to Jim Beetham’s 1998 CSE Turbo and second place to Darco Dragozov’s 1995 Aero. In the 900 and Earlier class, first place was won again by Jim Beetham with his 1988 900, with second place given to Tom Nelson’s 1974 Sonett. Our “Favorite SAAB” ribbon was awarded this year to Miles Bendixson for his 2011 NG 9.5.
By the way, Jim’s third car, a 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300 D Turbo Diesel, also won a first place ribbon in it’s M-B class, giving Jim the day’s hat trick: Three 1st place ribbons to take home!
Congrats to the winners, and thanks to all the club members who participated in the show. Special Thanks goes out to Bruce and Steve for judging and to Paul Bottone for volunteering for traffic control -
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he did such a great job that the organizers want him to head up traffic control every year from now on!
As it’s been every year, the concours was a huge suc- cess for Cerebral Palsy of Colorado, providing them with over $100,000 for their children’s programs. In all, 524 vehicle entrants entertained over 13,000 spectators throughout the day.
Each year we have a great time at this event as a club, as well as interacting with the other gearheads there, many of whom have a distinct affinity for SAABs.
Jerry fired up the stroker and revved her for anyone who paused to check it out. He loves that exhaust note.
Now, let’s drive ‘em hard and get ‘em dirty, until next year.
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