STOCKHOLM, Aug 18 — They’re incredibly well made, fun to drive, were great rally cars, offer space for all the family and are rare and reliable in equal measure, yet the most a restored Saab has ever fetched at auction is $15,000. So why aren’t Saabs getting more attention from classic car collectors?

Spend just one moment in Victor Muller’s company and you will be left with no doubt as to the Spyker co-founder and head designer’s love and enthusiasm for the boutique supercars his company builds.

So much so that it’s impossible to imagine him being any more excited about anything, but ask him about Saab and it all goes up a notch.

"It was my favorite car company! They are so wonderful,” he exclaims. "They have such great character. They were indestructible and they never bore. Every time I get into my Saab car I am never bored.”

Indeed he loved the Swedish marque so much that he tried to buy it and keep it going. It was a decision that nearly bankrupted Spyker and while Saab struggled on in limbo for a little while after, in June 2016, the company as a brand was officially declared dead too. A car can never be built again by anyone and called a Saab.

And Muller’s not alone. Jay Leno’s formidable collection contains a Saab. Jerry Seinfeld likes them, Stephen Fry eulogises about them, and former Top Gear presenter James May recently admitted that as a teenager he once dated a girl predominantly because her father had a Saab 99 Turbo.

Such high-profile adoration, mixed with ultimate demise is usually the perfect recipe for a marque to start rising in interest and in value. But they’re not.

"Saab does tick a lot of the boxes,” explains RM Sotheby’s Peter Haynes. "But the one thing that is peculiar to all Saabs in history really is that they have always been quite quirky-looking vehicles.”

In short, one should never underestimate the role of aesthetics when it comes to making a car appealing to the masses. "It’s hard to argue the case that a Saab is a beautiful car. You have to be able to swing open your garage door and say ‘I really, really like that.’ And there are certain types of vehicle where that isn’t possible,” says Haynes.

"Every car has a fanbase,” Haynes adds. "Everything has a market, but in order to elevate itself as a real collector car, there are certain aesthetic boxes that need to be ticked too.”

A perfect example is the Volvo P1800. Like Saab, it was built in Sweden and is full of safety and engineering innovations. Yet it’s a genuine collector’s car. "That’s because it is a very good-looking thing. There are a lot of aesthetically pleasing cars that are fundamentally not good. People spend fortunes on a Mercedes 190SL. They don’t have good engines and they’re not good drivers’ cars. But it looks like a 300SL gullwing,” says Haynes.

As a result, like so many cars that are genuinely brilliant under the skin but polarising on the outside, Saab, for now at least, is only going to be loved or ignored by a small group of car fans, unless it can make a stronger connection. — AFP-Relaxnews