Saab enjoys a new lease on life

You almost came upon me weeping, with real tears flowing down my cheeks. Why? I’ll tell you: It’s because the Saab motor car, once the best small car on the road, was headed for the junk heap of history.

Alas, it was going to join a galaxy of motor vehicles that won plaudits for those who drove them and praise from bystanders who saw them mincing their way down the streets like debutantes making their first appearance in society.

I’m getting on in years, so most of you may not know what I’m jazzing about when I tell you how proud I was to ride through the streets of Hartford in my father’s new Moon. Or how excited I was when he was one of the first in town to buy an Essex.

Those were Dad’s cars. After bringing my college sweetheart to Hartford as my bride, I indulged in a brand new car, a Ford. It didn’t have the cachet of a Mercedes Benz or the James Bond favorite, Aston Martin, but it served us well until it hit a tree and became a bucket of bolts.

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We started to become aware of a funny-looking little car that seemed to appear overnight on America’s streets. Everyone laughed, and eventually 20 million Americans bought one: the German Volkswagen, nicknamed the Beetle.

My wife finally broke down and drove a Beetle. It took a half-hour to go from 0 to 50 mph (I exaggerate just a bit), it was uncomfortable, the back seat only had enough room for little people and the alleged trunk was a joke. In return, however, it used hardly any gasoline and required almost no maintenance.

Then I bought a Saab of the same year, somewhere in the early ’50s. It was a small car, but unlike the Beetle, it had plenty of room in the front for a long-legged sort like me, the back seat was roomy enough for big people, and the trunk was almost big enough to hold the VW. It was sleek and had a nice airflow because it was designed by the same engineers who built fighter jets for the Swedish Air Force.

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Before we moved to Goshen, when I was the travel editor for the New York Herald Tribune, we vacationed in northern New Jersey one year and discovered “The King of Pickles� at the Branchville country fair. He sold garlic dill pickles to die for. (This may seem as if I digress, but wait for it.)

The poor old Trib died and we moved to Goshen. A few years later, our daughter, a student at Princeton, came across the King of Pickles, talked with him and learned he would be happy to provide us with barrels of pickles to sell at the Goshen Fair.

We set up a booth at the fair with a big sign, “King of the Pickles,� and I hauled 18 barrels of pickles from New Jersey in a rented van.

I hadn’t counted on the now-obvious fact that barrels of pickles can’t be left out in the sun. You will realize, as I did not until confronted with it, that they start to heat up, bubble and burst.

What to do? The Saab came to the rescue. I went around to the various food vendors and persuaded each to store a barrel of pickles in their refrigerated trucks until I needed them. For their trouble, each was presented with a big jar of the prize fermented cukes.

All the seats were pulled out of the Saab and it was loaded with pickle barrels. I drove the Saab around the fair unloading the barrels and then picked them up as we needed them. From then on the car was known as the Pickle Mobile!

We sold 16 of the 18 barrels. When the fair was over, all the empty barrels telescoped into each other and fit into the Saab. After selling the two extra barrels to local greengrocers, I drove the empties back to New Jersey.

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Saab, I was about to sob for you but General Motors, your present owner, has found a small car maker in Sweden who has promised to keep producing the car that won my heart not too many decades ago.

Freelance writer Barnett Laschever of Goshen  drives a 2003 Ford Taurus, made in America.  He also is co-author of a comprehensive guide to Connecticut and is writing his first mystery novel, set in nearby Washington.