Tommi’s Saab Site

Ok, this has absolutely nothing to do with Saabs, but I’ll post it anyway.

Juha Kankkunen has opened the doors of his amazing collection of Rally Cars to Edmuns Inside Line. The collection spans Kankkunen’s career. On display there are some of the most iconic Group B and Group A cars, as well as a few Ferraris and other “lesser” beings.

Check the story here: http://www.insideline.com/features/collection-of-a-lifetime.html

And the photo gallery here: http://www.insideline.com/features/the-kankkunen-collection-pictures.html

Many of the cars in the collection have been restored by Mäkelä Auto Tuning here in Finland. (You may remember an earlier post about my dealings with MAT). You should really check their site for some pretty amazing images of the restoration. Especially the amount of work done on the Toyota Celica Turbo is mind-boggling.

I bought a new project. It’s a 1969 Saab 96 V4 Rally car – originally built to Group 1 specs. The body is in a bad shape and the technique is missing, but it has some competition history from 1976 to 1977. My dad is already working on the body and I on finding the suitable parts. I’m not going to do a high level restoration – the goal is to make something closer to Gr2 that I can have some fun with on the Saab Club track days and on ice…

Tikkis already helped me out with the UK spec manifold and dual Webers…

Me and my friend Tomi “Tikkis” Tikanmäki have a new project.

We are collecting info and pictures of the Finnish Saab Works Team of 1970′s. Saab Works Finland built 19 full specs Saab 96 rally cars and 2 Saab 99 16 valve cars from 1970 onwards and brought home many international and scandinavian victories for Saab. Many of the cars have survived to this day, which makes this project (finding out their history) very exciting. The long term goal is to collect a comprehensive archive of all the drivers, cars, the team, etc.

I’m sorry the site is currently in Finnish only, we still have a ton of info and pics to upload so the english translation will come later: www.saabworks.fi

But at least you can check out the cars from the top navigation (they are indexed by the registration number and all the Saab Works Finland team cars can be found under the Saab Works Finland tab). There are also other cars featured on the site, just click through the top menu to see them.

Woodbecker Motorsport is Tomi’s team – he drives the AYA-10 Saab 96 ExWorks rally car in the Historic Rally Trophy here in Finland and does quite well in it also. AYA-10 was the first Saab 96 built by Saab Works Finland for Leo Kinnunen to compete in the 1970 Rally Of The 1000 Lakes. It’s very cool that the same car is still being raced 40 years later.

We are very interested in all pictures and materials concerning the Finnish teams efforts abroad. Finns participated in many rallies in Scandinavia and also the RAC in many years. If you have info, statistics, interviews from old magazines, pictures or anything related to the blue&white cars and their drivers, we would very much appreciate a scan or copy. Please contact us at saabworks@gmail.com.

Tommi

Graham Robson: Rally Giants - Saab 96 & V4

I just finished reading Graham Robsons book “Rally Giants – Saab 96 & V4″.  I wasn’t expecting too much of it, since it was only 128 pages and the price was surprisingly reasonable at Amazon.com. But actually the book does give a nice overview of the Saab rallying efforts and mentions all the highlights from the two stroke era to the end of the Saab 96/99  times. The technology side is somewhat cursory but describes the evolution of Saab rallying engines and cars in a level appropriate for this sort of book.

The imagery was a nice surprise. In addition to the usual promotional material there were some not familiar from previous publications or internet. Presumably some came from the archives of Saab Museum in Trollhättan with the help of Peter Bäckström.

I’m no expert on Saab rallying (especially the Swedish effort), but I did manage to find one error in the book:

Robson claims that Simo Lampinens Rally Of The 1000 Lakes winning car in 1972 was prepared by Saab Finland Works team. Actually this car was not prepared by Saab Works Finland but brought in from Sweden for this one race (the coloring is misleading in this case). It went right back after the race. Hence the temp licence plate.

There was not a whole lot of detail about the Finnish drivers and cars in the book, which was something of a disappointment from a Finnish perspective. Saab Works Finland built 19 full specs Saab 96 rally cars and 2 Saab 99 16 valve cars from 1970 onwards and brought home many international and scandinavian victories for Saab. It would have been nice to see a bit more detail of this side of the “operation”.

The Swedish – Finnish partnership worked pretty well though – despite the obvious rivalry. Simo won the 1000 Lakes in a Swedish prepared car and Stig Blomqvist brought home the last major victory for Saab 96 in a Saab Works Finland prepared car in the 1977 Hankiralli (Arctic Rally). This shows that the co-operation worked, despite Tapio Rainio really hating the fact that he had to give his favorite car (the AEC-501, which had been mainly in his use since RAC 1974) to a “swede”…

But all in all – a good read with some nice photos. Well worth the price.

A “collector series” of classic rally cars has been published here in Finland this year. It looks like it’s a British company behind the series (www.eaglemoss.co.uk), the international marketing name appears to be “Champion Rally Cars” and in Finland “Mestareiden ralliautot” (Cars Of The Rally Champions).

The packaging looks nice and the model comes with a little 16 page brochure about the car in question. I have not bought any of the other models but decided to get the Saab 96 V4  “S.Blomqvist – A.Hertz” when it came availlable. The model is not of the highest quality but decend for the price. Actually, it looks to me that it is the same model that has been sold as the IXO Models Saab 96 V4 “S.Blomqvist – A.Hertz. Swedish Rally 1972″.

“Backissues” of the series can be bought at: www.ralliautot.com (In Finnish only)

A few pictures of a pretty wild Saab 96 V6 “rallycar” made for a movie called “Kummeli Stories”. There were two cars made, one that could be blown to bits and then reassembled again (and blown to bits again) and this “hero” version for the driving scenes.