SAAB (originally an acronym for "Svenska Aeroplan AB") was founded as a Swedish
aircraft industry in
1937 in the city of
Linköping in
Sweden. After
World War II, the company sought ways in which to diversify its business and started to manufacture
automobiles in the early
1950s (in the city of
Trollhättan) and computers (
Datasaab) in the late 1950s. Later Saab also acquired the truck maker
Scania and for some time the company was called Saab-Scania.
Some of the early cars were quite successful in rally sport. In order to increase production volume, Saab helped Valmet to start a car factory in Finland.
A common feature of Saab car types is the use of the figure 9 in the model numbers. Current models are the 9-3 and 9-5.
Saab Automobile was sold to General Motors in the 1990s.
Currently, the main focus of the aircraft production is
fighter aircraft, with the recent
Gripen as the flagship model. Predecessors were among others the Lansen, the Draken and the
Viggen.
The final civilian models were the Saab 340 and Saab 2000 both mid-range,turboprop powered, passenger planes.
The
Datasaab company was a result partly of the need of heavy computational
power for the aircraft development, partly of the science-fictional idea to make a computer that would be small enough to mount in an airplane as navigational equipment. During the 1960s several successful and advanced systems was developed and sold to several European countries (used in e.g. banking). The aircraft computer (CK37) was achieved in 1971 in the
Viggen. The now less successful company was sold off in 1975 to
Sperry Univac, while flight computer development was kept in Saab.
