Saab 99 Gets 700bhp Makeover

Swedish home tuner doesn't spare the horses on restoration project

By SimonSaid / Monday, 2 November 2009 / Loading comments

Despite its pristine outward appearance, underneath the gleamingly restored bodywork this 1968 Saab 99 is really a 700bhp hot rod.

A true sleeper, the Saab has been restored brilliantly on the outside and from a distance looks to be almost concours standard. But whereas in original form the car had a 1.7-litre four-cylinder Triumph engine putting out about 85bhp, this 99 has a 2.0-litre Saab engine that has been turned around 180 degrees, tuned to the hilt and attached to an Audi 100's gearbox and four-wheel drive system.

The car was spotted on a Swedish car forum, where an interesting character known as 'Gustav N' posted pictures and details of his project to restore and tune a wrecked original Saab 99. Of course, language barriers are merely minor hurdles these days, and thanks to the magic of Google translate you can read the build thread (currently at 35 pages in length)

here

In the meantime enjoy some selected pictures from the build (there are plenty more on the Swedish forum thread), and this cracking video showing the Saab doing numerous runs down a quarter-mile strip, including a head-to-head with something of similar vintage. In one of the runs the gleaming Saab records a time of just 9.8 seconds; not so much concours as Concorde, it appears...