The first Saab-badged vehicle built under the control of new owner National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) has rolled of the production line at the former Swedish brand's Trollhattan assembly plant.
The first pre-production car to be built under NEVS ownership, the silver Saab 9-3 sedan is the first Saab model to leave the plant since Trollhattan shut its gates in April 2011 ahead of Saab filing for bankruptcy eight months later.
Looking near identical to the Saab 9-3 that ceased production in 2011, the model built by the Chinese-Japanese consortium does differ with the car missing the company's griffin head logo – the result of a 2012 agreement with truck maker Scania and defence and aerospace group Saab who continue to use the original logo.
Intended to assist in calibrating production line systems and as a test bed for new components, the pre-production 9-3 does not feature a new facelifted exterior planned for the final production model due to go on sale by 2014.
Likely to be joined by a convertible variant, the relaunched Saab 9-3 was originally slated to be an all-electric model, though, NEVS is yet to announce powertrain details.
A second pre-production 9-3 was also present at Trollhattan, further down the assembly line, both branded with new YTN chassis-number designations, a change from the previous model's YS3 identifier.
