1956 Saab Sonett Super Sport news, pictures, and information

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Spyder
Designer: Sixten Sason

Saab debuted the Super Sport Sonett at the 1956 Stockholm Motorcar Show. It was to be a high performance, low drag two-seater based on aircraft design principals. Because of the high cost, only six examples of the first series Sonett (known as the 94) were ever built. The Super Sport Sonett also used an aerodynamic glass fibre laminate body. This car is one of only 2 in the United States, the other being in the GM museum.

The Saab Sonett 1, unofficially termed the Saab 94 and also known as the Super Sport Sonett, was unveiled in 1956, six years after Sixten Sason, Saab's first styling designer, sketched ideas for a Saab 92 convertible. Credit for the Sonett also goes to four Saab engineers, starting with Rolf Mellde, who sketched his version of a Saab two-seater in 1954, but was unable to get management interested in pursuing the idea. Lars Olov Olsson, Olle Linkdvist and Gotta Svensson were also involved.

The inaugural Sonett, the first open car from Saab, had a glass-fibre reinforced plastic body and light-alloy chassis frame, and was originally intended for track racing. The project actually started outside of Saab, with those involved dedicated their own time to building the first prototype. In late 1955, the first Sonett was completed, with chassis-only road tests having been constructed. In late 1956, after its February unveiling at the Stockholm Auto Show, which was a resounding success, the go-ahead was given to produce an additional five Sonetts. Again, production was out-sourced because of the nature of the car's body and chassis construction, which for the remaining five, would feature steel chassis instead of alloy. These five cars were completed in early 1957. If featured a twin-carbureted, 57.7 hp version of the Saab three-cylinder engine that made its peak power at 5,000 rpm, a four-speed manual gearbox and weighed 1,150 pounds. Its top speed was rated at 120 mph, and its zero-to-sixty mph acceleration time was anticipated to be under the 12-second range.

Plans for production were moving forward, with a target of 2,000 Sonetts to be built each year. However, changes to the competition rules that allowed modified production cars to be run in the classes that Saab had envisioned its purpose-built Sonett racing in put a stop to the production plans, and a total of only six cars were ever produced.

Had the Saab Sonett 1 made it to the racetrack, it most likely would have enjoyed great success. Forty years after it was built, in 1996, Erik 'On the Roof' Carlsson, the legendary rally driver, set a Swedish speed record for its class of 159.40 km/h in a Saab Sonett 1. Today, three of the six Sonett 1s built are known to exist. This example is the property of Saab USA, and two are in the Saab Museum in Trollhatten.

Source - Saab

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