The Saab Turbo X Was A Hail Mary Halo Car: GM Hit Or Miss

Throughout the years, it’s difficult to understand Saab’s weird decisions such as two-stroke propulsion, back-to-front engines, and repeatedly telling GM’s accountants to shove it, but it’s impossible to not like them. After all, making Volvo look normal is an incredibly difficult task, and Saab certainly persevered through adversity. After years of neglect at the hands of General Motors, Saab finally had its own all-wheel-drive system in 2008, and it would let everyone know with a limited-run performance flagship called the Saab Turbo X. Welcome back to GM Hit Or Miss, where we dig through the crates of General Motors’ pre-bankruptcy product planning to separate the bangers from the flops.

If you aren’t familiar with Saab, this strange Swedish carmarker was founded in 1945 as a subsidiary of an airplane manufacturer. For decades, it was a niche automaker with a penchant for quirky performance and a pathological obsession with safety, but it had a rocky road. From a merger with truck brand Scania, to being owned by General Motors, to being passed along to Spyker, to the sad whimper of NEVS, this source of pride for the Swedish city of Trollhaatan never found sustainable footing, and ground to a halt shortly after the Great Recession.

Nevertheless, it attempted a halo car comeback on the eve of global financial disaster, one that took a page out of Audi’s playbook with an interesting all-wheel-drive system instead of the front-wheel-drive layout found in most prior Saabs, and had a limited run of just 2,000 units. The name of the car? Turbo X.

Spinning All Four

Underneath the Turbo X sat a Haldex all-wheel-drive system, but one unlike any other Haldex system people were used to at the time. See, in applications like the Audi TT, the Haldex setup was regarded as a “slip-and-grip” system, occasionally dragging the rear axle into play once the front tires had started to let go. While this is a technically acceptable form of all-wheel drive for people who don’t crave sporting credentials, anyone used to Nissan’s ATTESA system or even BMW’s xDrive would want more. As configured in the Turbo X, the Haldex system was a whole lot more.

For starters, this first application of Generation IV Haldex could theoretically send 100 percent of the engine’s torque to either the front or rear axle. Of course, something would have to go massively wrong for that to happen, like one axle being off the ground, but even sending more than 50 percent of engine torque to the rear axle in a transverse front-engined car is impressive. However, the Haldex unit isn’t the most impressive component of the XWD system, because Saab had something else up its sleeve.

Available on most XWD models and standard on the Turbo X was an electronically-controlled variable-locking rear differential. Yep, the same sort of tech you’d find in a new BMW M Car or hi-po Corvette. This awesome but fragile (more on that later) differential could send up to 40 percent of torque going to the rear axle to whichever rear wheel had more traction. Any all-wheel-drive system is typically only as good as its differentials, so fitting a proper limited-slip unit to the back of the Turbo X showed serious intent.

Power Play

While Saab was fiddling with all-wheel-drive, it was also figuring out how to extract more juice from its 2.8-liter turbocharged V6. For those familiar with the Saab tuning scene, this isn’t a difficult task, and Saab turned up the wick to 280 horsepower from the lesser Aero model’s 255 horsepower at the time. In addition to the powertrain tweaks, Saab went hard with the visuals on the Turbo X, casting a shadow over everything. Black paint, dark titanium accents, bi-color three-spoke wheels, this thing was trying to be the Swedish Buick GNX.

Rubber, Meet Road

Was the Turbo X any good? Well, yes and no. When Car And Driver tested one in 2008, they seemed largely disappointed.

Our test car barely broke 15 seconds in the quarter-mile and needed a full six seconds to hit 60 mph. We’re not quite sure how fast the Turbo X will go because during our top-speed run, the engine began to overheat around 145 mph. On the road, the Turbo X feels peppy, but you need to use the gearbox because you’ll notice turbo lag if you let the revs drop below 2000.

Cornering grip was also less than record-setting at 0.83 g. But the Turbo X has a taut feel on the road, and if you press it hard it rotates nicely when you ease the throttle near the cornering limit. The downside of this sporty suspension is a pogo-like hop on certain freeways and the occasional harshness over severe bumps.

While Motor Trend had more positive things to say about the Turbo X’s ride and handling, they also noted turbo lag, ultimately summing the car up with the line “I wanted to like the Turbo X better, yet I still enjoyed it.” Evo magazine, on the other hand, reached a similar yet more disappointed verdict.

Yes, I want to like this car. But while I appreciate its technical cleverness and failsafe demeanor, I am not excited by it. Good try, Saab, but your arrow has missed the keen driver’s heart.

See, 2008 was a banner year for sports sedans, with everyone from Infiniti to Cadillac genuinely trying to make moves at BMW’s throne. The Saab Turbo X was quick, but it just didn’t have the panache to keep up with the segment’s most exciting contenders. A BMW 335i or Infiniti G37 performed better, albeit at the expense of available five-door practicality. Oh, and if you couldn’t get your hands on a Turbo X but still wanted a fast Saab, all you had to do was wait. In due time, the XWD system, the electronically controlled limited-slip differential, and even the high-output V6 were downloaded to less special models in the range. Sure, these later XWD models are still rare because the 9-3 was growing quite stale by then, but they’re out there.

A Road To Nowhere

Despite its technology trickling down, the Saab Turbo X is still cool, no matter how good or bad it may be. Black is still a cool color, three-spoke wheels are cool, turbos are cool, the letter X is cool, it all just adds up. Coolness only goes so far though, so was the Saab Turbo X a hit? Nope. It’s an ouroboros of hipsterdom, eating its own tail into relative obscurity forever. Bringing 600 examples to America was likely the right call, because let’s face it, how many people could justify paying E90 BMW 335i money for a weird Swedish sedan that could barely outrun a 328i? The Saab Turbo X was a dead-end near the end of Saab itself, a showy staircase to nowhere in particular.

(Photo credits: Saab)

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