Saab 9000 as track day car?

Saab 9000 as track day car?

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the_bovine

Original Poster:

65 posts

248 months

Sunday 15th May 2005
quotequote all
Afternoon folks.

I'm looking for my first trackday car at the moment and have been toying with the idea of a Saab 9000.

Early 2.3 Turbo versions can be had for peanuts and there are plenty of places I've found that sell tuning bits for what appears to be resonable money (upgrades to ~250-60Bhp seem to come in at around the £500 mark for example).

Perhaps not the first choice for a track day machine, but for a total budget of around 3.5k what do you lot think?

900T-R

20,405 posts

263 months

Sunday 15th May 2005
quotequote all
Well, it's been done by lots of folks already, and stripping out the interior as well as tightening the supension and adding a front strut bar/rear brace together with decent rubber gets you most of the way. It may look positively barge-like, but it won Touring Car championships and endurance races in its day in the hands of the Abbott brothers, so the potential as well as the knowledge to make it an impressive roadburner are there.
The ultimate handling potential of a Classic 900 might be greater still, but you'd be looking at lots more money to unlock that potential and make up for the straight line urge of the 2.3 litre 9000 engine...

phatgixer

4,988 posts

255 months

Monday 16th May 2005
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There is a Lancia Thema turbo running in the National Windscreen Saloons at Combe and it has some real stomp.

As I understand it, the Saab 9000, Lancia Thema and Fiat Croma were all based on the same basic floorpan etc, so the 9000 should make quite a capable track car.

The Lancia runs (comically) wide front tyres and on slicks is immensely fast (like GT3RS quick) round the track. Cheap fun!