SPY PICS: Better late than never?

Bump up the ride height. Whack on a wider wheel arch trims. Fashion some apparently off-road ready "skid" plates under the rear bumper. Black out the side sills to the point they almost look like running boards. Stand back and admire.

That's what the folk at Saab are doing with their long-awaited 9-3X soft-roader -- a direct swipe at the likes of Audi's AllRoad, Volvo's XC70, Subaru's Outback and Skoda's Scout.

Within days of tardy spy photographers, Carparazzi, catching this undisguised example out and about, Saab released official photos, with the news that the equally late-to-the-party 9-3 derivative would be revealed to the public at the Geneva Auto Salon next month. We include both the official and unofficial pics here for your edification.

Although the 9-3X is to all intents and purposes a regular compact station wagon, it is gifted with all-wheel drive for two of the three variants and made to look more bush-ready than your average family vehicle.

The power options for the 9-3X include a front-wheel-drive-only diesel 1.9 TTiD (turbodiesel) variant, a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine and a 2.0-litre E85 BioPower variant. Outputs for the engines are 132kW/400Nm for the diesel and 155kW/300Nm for the BioPower engine, with Saab claiming "similar" figures for the petrol engine.

Both the spark-ignition variants drive through Saab's XWD all-wheel drive system. Drive to the rear axle is decoupled via an electronically-controlled multi-plate clutch system and there's an LSD for the rear wheels too.

For the GM-owned Swedish carmaker, the 9-3X is something of a no-brainer. All the technology was already in place, already on the road in the form of the AWD Turbo X Sport Sedan and SportCombi wagon that came to Australia in limited numbers in the first half of 2008.

The difference is that, unlike the Turbo X, the 9-3X nods curtly at the "mild" off-road market with its 20mm elevated ride height and wagon-only configuration.

Not many buyers are likely to try it, but the 9-3X should be capable of venturing a little further into the wild than any other Saab so far.

-- with Carparazzi