From The Classifieds: 2006 SAAB 9-5 Linear

SAAB may have vacated the Australian marketplace, but there's a lot of used models still on the road – usually at prices that are hard to ignore. The 9-5 model was conceived as a BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi A6 competitor and good examples can be found for a song.

Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is a rule that should be applied to any purchase of a used car, and the term is particularly appropriate to SAAB. Especially so because the brand has been subject to some serious uncertainty in not-so-recent times and even today's cranking-up of the production lines in Trollhattan, Sweden, has not done a lot to reassure those with a hankering for the Swedish product.

However chequered the company’s history might have been, though, it cannot be denied SAAB occupies a special place in the universal scheme of things.

From its role as a car-maker with a determination to do things its own way, to a General Motors subsidiary that lost its identity, to a drifting, cash-strapped entity that looked like it would disappear forever, the company has now become a small-volume manufacturer owned by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) with the obligatory Chinese financial backing.

This in some way helps the case for existing SAABs on Australian roads, although it by no way means a re-start of local new-car sales at any time in the foreseeable future.

So the SAABs we see are from the pre-GM golden days and the early collaborative efforts such as the Opel-underpinned 900 and the later, much more refined 9-3 convertibles and sedans.

The 9-3 was supplemented by the bigger 9-5 model locally in 1997. Based on a new GM platform, the 9-5 was a contemporary design that suffered none of the dynamic compromises so evident in the original 9-3 series (which was badged 900 until a significant under-the-skin re-jig in 1998).

Aimed at the likes of BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Audi A6, the big front-wheel-drive SAAB did a sterling job of competing in the segment, even if the company's local pricing structure was a bit unrealistic.

The interior was more spacious than the 9-3, the ride and handling were demonstrably better and the performance provided by the front-drive 2.3-litre turbo four was quite competitive with the cooking models from Benz, BMW and Audi. During its lifetime, the 9-5 was sold in various guises, from the base, 136kW  low-blow turbo through a number of variants culminating in the powerful 9-5 Aero.

But with the company's decline, SAAB vehicles, unsurprisingly, fell out of favour on the used-car market, to the extent that you can now buy a pre-owned 9-5 (or any SAAB for that matter) for a fraction of the original price. Provided you can accept the possible shortfalls of a minimal after-sales structure, there are some pretty good SAABs to be had.

A case in point is this one-owner 2006 9-5 Linear (it is described as a model year 2005 vehicle) with an upper end of the scale asking price of $8,900 and an odometer reading of just over 125,000km. The Nocturn Blue SAAB with its beige leather interior currently lives in the outer Melbourne suburb of Wheelers Hill.

The base Linear model came well equipped with dual front and side airbags, heated front seats, dual-zone windscreen wipers, heated front seats, dual-zone climate control, trip computer, rain sensing wipers, headlight washers and a seven-speaker audio system.

The five-speed automatic 9-5 comes with a roadworthy certificate and is described as being in “very” excellent condition. It has 10 months registration and is backed up by a full service history.