| O.K. Here are a couple of pics of my old SAAB with a
few links to SAAB stuff on the web. Though I no longer have the Sonett, it is avery 'neat' little car. |
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(details)
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| The Sonett III was built between 1970 and 1974.
Each year only about 2000 were produced, making it somewhat rare.
Previously Saab had built a Sonett and a Sonett II, both were even
less well received, and short lived.
The Sonett III, is quite a nice
little sports car.
It has alloy wheels, all fiberglass body, front
disc brakes and a dual exhaust.
It is powered by a four cylinder
1.7liter, Ford V-4 engine (yes 'V', not inline or flat), through a
4-speed manual transmission. The transmission has an interesting feaure
known as "freewheel" that I have rarely used, but suppose it would be
handy on snow or ice.
I personally think the '72 is a good year as it
just missed getting the large unbecoming, tacked-on, bumpers that were
added to meet safety regulations in 1973.
I could go on about the car,
but instead will refer you to some links at the bottom of this page for
more information. |
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| If you were wondering about the spelling of Sonett, and what it might mean, here is a brief description (accurate? I don't know. But it's the most common explanation I've found) -- quoted from a user on the VSAAB.com group: |
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The car is called a "Sonett". Not a "Sonnet". But almost. The origin of the name is that somebody (forget who, but I could look it up) exclaimed, upon seeing a prototype, tt den r!", which translates to, roughly, "So neat that is!". (If the funky characters didn't come through, that's "Sa natt den ar!", with a circle over the first 'a' and a pair of dots over each of the other two.) And "s tt" in Swedish is pronounced pretty close to "so nett", but not exactly. So why is it called a "Sonett" instead of a "S tt"? Because it's a pun. "Sonett" is the Swedish word for "sonnet" (14-line poem). So to a Swede who doesn't know the story, the car appears to just be named after a poem. And consequently, it's therefore not so bad for us Anglophones to pronounce it "sonnet", since that's what it means anyway. |
| Other sources I've found state that "n tt" means cute. But then, I'm sure it can mean many things depending on context... (and I'm not Swedish, nor do I speak the language.) |
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