I was one of the first on stage after GM's Gary Cowger and company finished with the unveiling ceremonies, and after taking a few quick close-up photos, jumped inside for a closer look. "Hey, this looks like a Saab," I thought to myself. The vents, center stack and steering-wheel... hold on a minute. This steering wheel is pulled right out of a GM SUV, nice badge but it doesn't feel anything like the nice 3-spoke Saab wheel.
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| At first glance, the interior of the 9-7x does capture the classic Saab look. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
The plastics quality is much better than any of the GM SUVs, at least on the dash and center stack. Drop the glovebox and the TrailBlazer roots show through too much for my liking though. A little more poking around and it was easy to see the high-grade touches were merely skin deep, with the center console armrest/bin, for instance, pulled right out of the domestic sport ute.
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| The 9-7x will be available with a powerful, albeit somewhat archaic 300-hp overhead-valve V8 engine mated to an equally un-import-like 4-speed automatic transmission. At least the ignition key slots into the center console though. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
There's more anti-import sentiment running under the hood, in the form of a powerful (300 horsepower and 330 lb-ft of torque for a 8.0 second sprint to 100 km/h) but somewhat archaic overhead-valve V8. A what? That's right. I never thought I'd see the day when Cadillac would boast state of the art mechanicals, including multivalve, dual-overhead cam V6 and V8 engines, and Saab would come to market with nothing better than yesterday's pushrod technology. It's like GM is systematically dismantling one of Cadillac's core competitors. The 9-7x sports a 6-cylinder too, an impressively smooth powerplant as tested in the rest of GM's sport utilities. At 275 horsepower it delivers all the goods, including a reasonably decent 9.0 second run from 0 to 100 km/h, but once again its SOHC cam two-valve architecture is not quite at the high-tech level expected in the premium import league. The SUV's top speed with either engine is a not so blistering albeit adequate 191 km/h (119 mph) - move over VW Toureg!
Neither is the Hydra-Matic L460-E four-speed automatic, an old-tech transmission not up to the sophistication of the 5, 6 and soon, 7-speed automatic gearboxes in competitive luxury SUVs, that now feature state-of-the-art shift-logic control and manual-mode shift capability. The "on demand" all-wheel drive system with limited-slip differential is pretty impressive though.