A FLING IN THE DIRT
CAR Magazine UK (1976) 

Copyright of Car Magazine

Flung hard into a long dirt bend, the faithful 96 (now with the 99's crash bumpers) drifts perfectly, handles beautifully. In the Competitions Department's workshops, a Weber topped engine goes into one of the new rally cars for the current season.

Why should a tiny company try so hard to win rallies?

TAKE A SAAB 96 OUT ON THE DIRT AND YOU SOON DISCOVER why the strange little V4 has been such a force in rallying for so long. It is light and taut and responsive, obeying both steering wheel and throttle impeccably. Up comes a long left-hander. You come in with the power on, under steering just a touch. Then you back off just a touch and the tail comes out, Ah, just a little more will do it; so you stay off the throttle a moment longer, and when the car is fully sideways, you power on again and sweep neatly through, stones stewing from the front wheels. And if you can do this with the 96 after half a mile, it’s no wonder the rally drivers can put it to such use.

The problem now for Saab, though, is that the 96 is at the very end of its development as a rally car. The 2-litre version of the V4, most latterly with Lucas injection, gives 175bhp and while that is enough to keep the car competitive for the moment, the going will be much tougher after 1977. The latest Escorts have 220bhp.

So Saab are well advanced with development of the 99 as an eventual rally replacement for the faithful 96. The 99 is, by design, a heavy car for its size, so a lot of power will need to come from the inline 2.0 litre to provide a satisfactory power-to-weight ratio. The bottom end of the engine is strong it can stand well over 300bhp but the Dolomite Sprint 16-valve head won’t fit on to Saab’s version of the engine so they’re seeking their own solution. Twin cams and injection? They play their cards close to their chest.

Rallying is life-blood to Saab. Just two weeks after the first 92 rolled off the line, engineer Roif Mellde entered one in the Swedish winter rally and won. The benefits ever since come not only from the victories. Equally important are the developmental lessons invaluable to a company that can’t create a huge, controlled test facility. All the on-going tests must come from the forests, and a small, highly efficient competitions department can feed back data to the design engineers very quickly indeed; faults rectified, improvements made. Saab’s development work takes place in the toughest testing ground of them all, as a necessity.