Let’s hear it for the Swedes!
Apart from the disinterested staff at IKEA Brent Park (although to be fair they’re not Swedish), what’s not to like about Sweden and the Swedes?
There’s Abba, Olof Mellberg, my new Peak Performance Air Down Jacket, stunning blondes, the Scandinavian Kitchen on Great Titchfield Street, Smorgesbord, the Swedish Chefs from the Muppets, herring, gravadlax, meatballs, rally drivers called Stig, lots of crazily-named and odd-tasting confectionery such as Plop chocolate, Spunk liquorice, Skum bananas, Bumlingerer sweets, and of course, the reason why I’m writing this… Saab.
Ever since I went to the Motor Show at the NEC as a schoolboy and stroked the spoiler of a black Saab 900 turbo… well, no, it started before that – when the Saab Viggen was the only plane worthy of two airfix models hanging from cotton on my bedroom ceiling – all the rest, even the awesome MCDonnell Douglas Phantom F4 and the fantastic Catalina seaplane were limited to one. The Saab Viggen had not one but TWO sets of delta wings – an extra tiny set at the front that set it apart as something esoteric, exotic, and exciting to a Birmingham schoolboy who dreamt of becoming a pilot (a plan which fell by the wayside once I grew past six foot two, and became too tall for ejector seats).
So when the time came to get a sensible and safe family car, there was only one choice: a Saab 9-3S – silver with the coolest 5-spoke alloy wheels – happy days.
Happy days, anyway, until last week when the steering creak on my nearly nine year old Saab was diagnosed as the steering rack becoming detached from the bulkhead. The thought of the best part of a grand to make it roadworthy again put me right off my herrings I can tell you.
And then the service manager at Ballards of Finchley rang to say “Saab have agreed to fix it for you.” Now that’s what I call customer service. I might even have express my appreciation by sending some Plop to head office.
And when I dropped it off this morning (after a very satisfactory Saab moment of driving effortlessly up the extremely icy hill that I live at the bottom of past an abandoned Merc and a stationary but wheel-spinning jag) I was given a complimentary cab to the tube station! Saab and the Swedish nation rocks!
Chalky