Been there, done that, sort of…
Mrs. Saabnuts and me made it to this year’s Swedish Beauty Contest hosted by and at Mitchell Volvo & Mitchell Saab in beautiful Simsbury, Connecticut.
One of the Volvo 122 Amazon models my wife liked, Sadly I missed a very cool, much older Volvo also on display.
We arrived late and left early due to work schedules and one of us having some back trouble that makes standing or sitting for too long uncomfortable to say the least.
Not as many Saabs and Saabers as in previous years but still some very nice folks as always.
Sorry I have already forgotten the name of the nice fellow with the 1978 Saab 95 wagon pictured a few notches below. Really gorgeous car he brought from Massachusetts today, but from Europe before that. Loved the Euro headlight wipers which you will see below.
Also met Jordan and Adam from E-Euro Parts.
SUPER nice guys too with Jordan’s VERY cool 99 EMS present at the show.
Our Viggen stayed home but our 99 Turbo was in attendance.
Nice event, with music from Swedish bands playing over loudspeakers, plenty of extremely friendly Mitchell staff mingling with the crowd, barbecue going and all of the usual generous treats & gifts Mitchell offers to customers and strangers alike.
I know it is a promotional event for Mitchell Volvo & Mitchell Saab, but I still want to thank Mark Mitchell and everyone there for crippling their dealer for a day to entertain us all.
We are thankful to have Mitchell and other dealers here who have not abandoned the Saab faithful.
The Mitchell staff includes folks old enough to have worked on cars like our 99 Turbo when it was new and had friendly and helpful advice even for owners of cars no longer typically supported or serviced by dealers. We truly appreciate that!
We were disappointed that Dad couldn’t make this year’s show as he is a LONG time Volvo owner and fan. We think he would have enjoyed the visit to Mitchell.
There were many more Volvos at the show than I managed to photograph and I apologize to anyone who went to the trouble of attending and whose car isn’t among these photos, but again we were not able to stay and enjoy the entire event.
We are both fans of the Volvo 1800, 1800S and 1800ES models, and almost purchased an 1800 before we bought the 99 Turbo.
The wife and I both think the 900 vert above would be a nice addition to our collection of too many Saabs for 2 people.
The folks at Mitchell know how to torture a couple like us… above are a 9-5 wagon (Estate) and a 2002 9-3 SE, both of which are on are wish list.
Mind you we already own 2, 2002 9-3’s in red, but wouldn’t a third be even better than just 2? Spare parts anyone? We like the idea of having our own Saab loaner fleet if one is in for service 😉
Another shot of that 9-5 wagon I lusted after… (above)
To die for (above)… a 1986? 900S. Original owner, for sale, local to us, garaged, never seen salty winter roads and something like 8,000 or 30,000 on the odometer. Really low mileage (like our 2000 Viggen with 15,000 on the odometer).
I didn’t take a photo of or write down the phone number because this was beyond tempting although also frankly not in our budget to bring our fleet back up above 4 Saabs. But someone ought to snatch that car up and love it.
One last shot of the 2002 9-3 SE that we don’t need but which I really want to add to our Saab fleet, if only to annoy the neighbors with 3 identical cars 😉
Again my apologies to the many Volvo and Saab owners who brought outstanding cars to the show that are not among my photos.
As much as we thought we would stay longer, I don’t want to abuse having a wife who also enjoys cars and can endure conversations about B and H engine types, CIS, turbos, hot start kits and the rest. Thank you to my wife too for making it to this show with me!
How many of us can say we are fortunate enough to have a wife at their side saying “don’t sell the 99, I love this car!”?
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