A Retired Rally Car

            Usually when you retire you go out and take things a little easy. While Jim Bell isn’t retired himself, one of the cars he loves to drive around is.

            “It’s a retired Rally car,” he said, that he bought five years ago. He is talking of his 1968 Saab Sonnett II V-4.

            Back in 1945 Svedka Aeroplan AB, a Swedish aerospace and defense contractor, began development on a small automobile which became the 92. Its name was derived as a sequence following the 91, a single engine trainer airplane the company had manufactured. Three years later the airplane plant was retrofitted to also allow for the manufacture of automobiles.

            In the mid to late 1950s, a handful of Saab engineers working independently of the factory and with a shoestring budget developed the company’s first sports roadster.  This 94 model was named the Sonnett which comes from a Swedish phrase meaning, “how neat it is.”

            The plan was to race the slightly less than 750 cc two stroke three cylinder 57.5 horse power car on the European race circuit. Unfortunately, by the time the car was ready, rules had changed allowing modifications to cars in the classes Saab wanted to enter. So of the projected 2000 Sonnett I models only six actually rolled off the line.

            In the early 1960s two other engineers revisited the concept of a two seater roadster and developed the model 97 which, in 1966, began rolling off the line as the Sonnett II.

            Originally the Sonnett II featured a three cylinder two stroke engine that generated 60 horse power but after 28 were built, the company switched to a 1500 cc V 4 Ford Taurus engine and the car was re-christened the V-4.

            Though the new engine generated only 65 horsepower, the fiberglass bodied Sonnett was extremely light (with a curb weight of only 1700 pounds) and allowed the car to go from zero to 100 in a touch over 12 seconds and gave it a top speed about 100 miles per hour.

            The cars had mixed success in racing, according to Jim. “Because they based the race classes on engine displacement it meant that this car was racing against Porsches.” Not really a fair fight.

            “They would be great in the corners and coming out of the,” Jim said, “but down the straight aways they just couldn’t get up the speed to keep up.”

            When he bought his Sonnett he had the car re-built by Jack Ashcroft. “He did a total rebuild of the engine, transmission and exhaust.”

            Because Saab cannibalized parts from other European manufacturers when making the Sonnett, it is easier to find replacements for some parts and not so easy for others. “The transaxle is impossible to find,” he said.

            His engine had already been modified, according to Jim, saying that the head had been bored and milled among other things. “That took it from about 70 horse power up to 130,” he added. There were also some reinforcements added to his car which he said makes it more sturdy and tighter through the corners. “It is quick out of a corner.”

            Jim likes to drive his Sonnett but not on the race track. “It’s a retired Rally car,” he points out. He estimates that this front wheel drive car gets about 30 miles per gallon, “Though it hasn’t been designated,” he added.

            “I take it to a lot of shows,” Jim said. “I like talking to people about it.”

            Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you retire, take it easy?