萨博汽车（Saab Automobiles）申请破产的消息一如既往地引发震动，人们先是捶胸顿足，随后开始相互攻击、指责。

    萨博这个拥有悠久历史的传奇品牌居然也因为财务问题被送上断头台，这让许多汽车业的传统主义者深感沮丧。一个精品汽车品牌的消失就好比一个物种的灭绝，我们再也见不到它们的身影了。萨博也将一去不回还。

    许多人把萨博失败的主要责任归咎于通用汽车（General Motors）。通用1990年收购了萨博的半数股权，10年前又吃进了剩下的50%。

    有评论人士指出，通用根本就不了解萨博。他们没有准确地理解萨博的历史和遗产，强行将它并入通用的生产体系，导致品牌完整性遭到弱化，同时在财务和管理上也没能给予足够的支持。

    事实上，我认为要不是通用汽车20年前将萨博收入旗下，萨博可能早就淡出人们的视野了。原因很简单：萨博这个品牌太小了，在当前的模式下没法生存。像梅赛德斯奔驰（Mercedes-Benz）和宝马（BMW）等德系车，年产量可达百万辆，但萨博的年销量却从来没有超过14万辆。就连沃尔沃（Volvo）的产量都能达到它的两三倍。低产量是十分致命的，因为汽车行业是一个靠规模经济称王的产业。萨博一要分摊新车型研发的成本，二要面临越来越严格的安全性和排放技术标准，这就对公司财力提出了巨大的要求。除非它的年销量能达到几十万辆，否则这两个目标都是不可能实现的。

    萨博的未来同样很黯淡。由于它的吸引力非常狭隘，因此这个品牌注定做不大。虽说萨博的车主可能并不介意别人叫他们“怪人”，说不定还甘之如饴。但只要说起开萨博的人，人们脑海中总会出现一群穿灯心绒夹克和地球牌旅游鞋的英伦教授范儿的大叔——可见它的客户群并不广泛。其它的欧洲品牌则在扩展品牌吸引力上表现得更出色，尤其是奥迪（Audi）。

    除此之外，萨博还背负着另一个“不可承受之重”——它得养活一大帮高薪低能的瑞典工人。据《汽车新闻》（Automotive News）报道，在上世纪90年代执掌过萨博的戴夫•赫尔曼曾经说道：“健康漂亮的小伙子们都可以从医生那里弄来一份证明，然后骑着摩托，载着女朋友去湖边或什么地方。日常旷工率高达18%。”另外公司的生产率也十分低下，质量也惨不忍睹。在咨询公司J.D. Power历年发布的汽车初始质量排名中，萨博历来排名接近垫底。

    这些因素结合起来，使得萨博在很快难以继续生存，只能求助于通用。为了解决这些问题，通用向萨博安插了美国管理人员，将一些产能转移到了德国，零部件则采取了向欧宝（Opel）采购或共同生产等方法。后来萨博打了几个漂亮的翻身仗，推出了可能是该品牌有史以来最好的9-3轿车。

    The news that Saab Automobiles filed for bankruptcy has spurred the usual round of breast-beating, finger-pointing, and name calling.

    Automotive traditionalists are understandably upset that a brand with a long and storied history like Saab has wound up on the financial chopping block. The disappearance of a boutique automaker is like the extinction of a species -- its like will never be seen again. Saab will be as dead as the dodo.

    Most of the blame for Saab's failure is being laid at the feet of General Motors, which bought a half-interest in Saab in 1990 and then the rest of it a decade ago.

    GM, the critics say, didn't understand Saab. They weren't properly appreciative of its history and heritage, diluted its brand integrity by merging it into GM's production system, and failed to support it financially or managerially.

    In fact, I would argue that Saab would have expired years ago had not GM taken it under its wing two decades ago. The reason is simple: Saab was simply too small to survive in its current configuration. At a time when German luxury makers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW make more than one million cars a year, Saab never sold more than 140,000 cars a year. Even Volvo made two or three times that many cars. Low production is fatal, because the auto industry is all about economies of scale. Trying to amortize the expenses of new model engineering, not to mention increasingly stringent safety and emissions technology, requires accounting gymnastics that are all but impossible unless volumes reach the hundreds of thousands.

    The future was bleak. Saab was destined to remain small because its appeal was so narrow. While its owners may have reveled in being described as "quirky," their image never extended much beyond that of the corduroy jacket, Earth shoe wearing English professor -- not a broad base from which to build. Other European brands -- notably Audi -- did a better job of expanding their appeal.

    Saab bore another burden that was unbearably heavy: its base in high-wage, low output Sweden. As Dave Herman, who ran Saab in the 1990s, was quoted as saying, most recently in Automotive News: "Beautiful, healthy young people could get a doctor's certificate and then hop on their motorcycle with their gal and go off to a lake somewhere. The daily absenteeism rate was 18%." On days when Saab employees came to work, productivity was poor and quality abysmal. Saabs historically ranked near the bottom of J.D. Power's initial quality ratings.

    The combination of factors would have soon made it difficult for Saab to remain a viable proposition without GM's help. GM tried to ameliorate its problems by installing American managers, moving some production to Germany, and integrating its parts buying and engineering with Opel. It had some notable successes. It developed what was probably the best 9-3 ever.

    2002年推出的第二代9-3轿车基于通用的Epsilon平台，欧宝的威达（Vectra）轿车也基于同一平台。而今年年初推出的萨博9-4x则是基于凯迪拉克SRX平台打造得一款城市SUV。这是一款非常出色的跨界车型，外形大方，响应迅速，做工精良。不过由于萨博危机不断，媒体负面报道不绝，因此9-4x并没有获得在市场上大放异彩的机会。

    通用收购萨博从一开始就是一个弥天大错。而这个错误的责任可以算到到时任通用欧洲总裁的鲍勃•伊顿头上。后来伊顿成了克莱斯勒（Chrysler）的首席执行官，在他任内，克莱斯勒与戴姆勒-奔驰（Daimler-Benz）达成了臭名昭著的“对等合并”。

    1980年底，赚得钵满盆盈的底特律三大汽车厂商先后赴欧洲收购豪车品牌。福特（Ford）成功地把捷豹（Jaguar）、沃尔沃（Volvo）、路虎（Land Rover）和阿斯顿马丁（Aston Martin）收入旗下；克莱斯勒则收购了意大利超跑生产商兰伯基尼（Lamborghini）。通用也不甘落后，由鲍勃•伊顿牵头，收购了萨博。

    通用收购萨博，可谓是“在错误的时间里迈出了错误的一步，收购了一家错误的公司。”当年由于通用CEO罗杰•史密斯抛出了工厂自动化方案和宏大的支出计划，导致通用的现金所剩无几，更别说资助严重缺乏投资的萨博了。后来通用与菲亚特（Fiat）、蓝旗亚（Lancia）、阿尔法•罗密欧（Alfa Romeo）等意大利品牌联手开发了萨博9000轿车，但它一直没能被萨博的爱好者们完全接受。其中一个原因是由于萨博车系的点火开关一向布置在排档杆后面，但萨博9000的点火开关却被安装在转向柱上，让很多铁杆车迷甚为不快。虽然萨博9000量产了13年，但总共只生产了50多万台，只相当于一个雪佛兰（Chevrolet）工厂两年的产量。

    通用收购了萨博后，曾经一度计划升级它的质量，提高它的产能，让这个品牌实现现代化。通用的初衷是好的，但在执行上却有缺陷。萨博被收购后推出的第一款车型——萨博900于1993年面世，它是美国资金、德国工艺和瑞典生产技术杂交失败的产物。它的后续车型萨博9-5不得不延后推出，一直到1997年才面世。

    萨博的存在对通用来说没有任何意义，虽然萨博接连推陈出新，仍旧于事无补。促成这起收购的伊顿早在1992年就投奔了克莱斯勒，而萨博也无法融入通用的任何长期计划。通用已经有了一个表现不佳的欧洲品牌（欧宝），而且它也没有什么资源可以转移到瑞典，更何况萨博扭亏为赢的希望原本就很渺茫。当时，通用将全部心血放到了土星（Saturn）等本土车型身上，结果血本无归。后来萨博改变了路线，开发了一款四驱系统，它本可以增强萨博作为拉力赛冠军的形象，在北欧和美洲的消费者中引起共鸣，可惜已经太晚了。

    通用收购萨博的初衷是好的，可惜他们走错了路。通用本来可以放任萨博自生自灭，但硬是留着它撑过了三次经济危机。萨博的铁杆粉丝们自然为它的消失扼腕叹息，但起码在通用的庇护下，萨博还是苟延残喘地多活了20年。

    译者：朴成奎

    Introduced in 2002, the second-generation model was built on GM's Epsilon platform that it shares with the Opel Vectra. Likewise, the 9-4x -- launched briefly this year before Saab effectively stopped operating last spring -- was based on a platform it shares with the Cadillac SRX. A superb crossover vehicle, it was refined, responsive, and beautifully finished. But with Saab making daily headlines as it careered from one crisis to another, it never had a chance in the marketplace.

    That one big mistake that GM made was to buy Saab in the first place. And the blame for that can be laid at the door of Bob Eaton, who ran GM Europe at the time. Eaton, of course, would go on to become CEO of Chrysler where he arranged the notorious "merger of equals" with Daimler-Benz.

    Flush with profits at the end of the 1980s, Detroit's Big Three went shopping for European brands. Ford (F, Fortune 500) won the bidding for Jaguar, and would also add Volvo, Land Rover, and Aston Martin to its portfolio. Chrysler acquired Italian supercar maker Lamborghini. And GM, not to be left out, grabbed Saab, with Eaton leading the charge.

    It was the wrong move with the wrong company at the wrong time. GM CEO Roger Smith had bled GM dry with his factory automation schemes and grandiose spending plans, and GM had little cash to divert to Saab, which was already suffering from underinvestment. It had joined with Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo to develop the engineering that resulted in the Saab 9000, which was never fully accepted by Saab devotees because, for one thing, the ignition switch was located not on the floor as was customary with Saabs, but on the steering column. Although the 9000 would remain in production for 13 years, only a little more than 500,000 were built -- equal to two years output from a single Chevrolet plant.

    Once it acquired Saab, GM tried to modernize it by upgrading quality and improving productivity. Its intentions were good, but the implementation was flawed. Its first stab at developing new models -- the 900 that came out in 1993 -- resulted in an unfortunate mashup of Detroit financing, German engineering, and Swedish production techniques. The 9-5, the successor to the 9000, was late and didn't arrive until 1997.

    Saab just didn't make any sense for GM, and the numbers didn't work. Eaton was long gone, having departed for Chrysler in 1992, and Saab didn't fit into any of GM's long-term plans. It already had one underperforming European brand on its hands in Opel and had few resources to divert to Sweden -- especially when there was little prospect of a return. GM was committed to homegrown projects like Saturn that weren't paying off; throwing good money after bad at Saab didn't make any sense. Only too late did Saab get around to develop an all-wheel-drive system that would have reinforced its image as a rally champion and resonated with buyers in northern Europe and America.

    GM had the best of intentions toward Saab, but while they went awry, it kept Saab alive through three recessions when it might have died of natural causes. Saab aficionados will mourn its passing, but at least this automotive invalid was kept alive for two decades past what could have been its projected expiration date.