Saab 900 T16S – Cult Classic, Not Best Seller

Think SAAB, think aeroplanes. Wraparound windscreens, just like aircraft. Cockpits tailored around the pilot. And of course the turbocharging. Not quite like airplanes, but the same sensation of being pressed back in your seat. SAAB’s cleverest innovation, the T16S, doesn’t immediately seem plane related. But transforming a workaday 1960s saloon into an ’80s road rocket definitely was.

It’s 40 years since SAAB introduced the Aero body kit that created the T16S. It owed a lot to the way aeroplanes smooth their way through the stratosphere. And so distinctive was it that when author Matt Searle came to name his recent book about the car, the title was obvious: Icon.

In the mid-’80s, SAAB needed to refresh its model range. The big 9000 was in the works, but it wasn’t a direct replacement for the staple 99 cash cow. Money was tight so the chaps at Trollhattan got creative. The 99 was elongated at the front and rear and got a longer name too – the 900. It could have looked terrible. It didn’t.

But let’s get back to the turbocharging because who doesn’t like forced induction? The 99 Turbo wasn’t the first spooling saloon, but it was the first real volume seller. By the early ‘80s, everyone else was in on the act – Porsche, Audi, even Renault. SAAB needed something new if it was to avoid falling further behind the competition.

Cue the T16 engine: a 16-valve version of the venerable B202 slant four. Multivalve technology may have been cutting edge but there was nothing modern about the engine – it began life in the 1960s as a joint venture with Triumph. Alongside some suitably SAAB-like technological twiddling, power jumped from the 145bhp of the old 99 to 175bhp. At the time the firm claimed this was the most that could be safely delivered through the front wheels. As tyre-scrabbling buyers would attest, they were probably right. After all, Audi needed 4WD to plant the Quattro’s 200bhp.

The 99 was quick but the 16v was quick. It arrived in showrooms in late 1984, initially available as an option on the first generation of the 900, known for obvious reasons by enthusiasts as the ‘flat nose.’ There were two versions – the T16 and the T16S – the one with the Aero body kit.

We wouldn’t be writing this if SAAB had only given the world the T16. Just like the 99 Turbo, it looked a lot like the other 900s. The T16S didn’t. It got some light suspension tweaks and front and rear anti-roll bars, but it was transformed by the ‘Aero’ body kit specially developed by Britain’s Geoff Wardle. SAAB had tasked him with creating some add-ons to establish a lightly ‘sportified’ version of the 900 to accompany the new T16 engine. He began work while Chief Designer Bjorn Envall – who had worked on the 99 and developed the 900 – was in America. When Envall came back a few days later, Wardle had not quite stuck to the brief. Instead he’d created a full aerodynamic body kit, including sills and spoiler that utterly changed the boxy, workaday 900 lines but it’s to Envall’s credit that instead of berating Wardle’s efforts, he ran with it.

Wardle wasn’t working in isolation. During the 1980s, car makers were all discovering how spoilers could transform old cars into something seemingly newer. But the Alfa Romeo Spider ‘Aerodynamica,’ Datsun 280ZX and Aston Martin V8 didn’t quite work in the same way as the 900. Or at all for that matter.

It certainly could have gone badly wrong. Overhauling what was already a cobbled together, budget update of a 1960s car had all the hallmarks of disaster but in the hands of Wardle it was a masterstroke. The new body kit turned the slab-sided 900 into a modern, air-cleaving missile. Wardle’s crowning glory, the cherry on the Aero icing on the 900 cake, was his design for the new car’s alloy wheels. The three-spoke ‘Aeros’ would go on to be a SAAB design classic, developed into a multitude of versions, and one of the most distinctive alloy wheels of the last 40 years. Pulling off a three-spoke setup is notoriously difficult but Saab and the T16S managed it with aplomb.

Along with the 175bhp motor, this body kit cemented the T16S’ reputation as one of the greatest and most distinctive sporting saloons of the 1980s and ‘90s. But let’s not forget that engine. 175bhp from a 2.0-litre was unheard of, particularly in a relatively inexpensive family car. Where the 99 suffered all-or-nothing lag, the 900, while not quite curing the eyebrow-raising power delivery, smoothed it out into something less alarming. This was a car that could surprise – and did surprise – much more rarified models.

The early T16S ‘flat nose’ appeared in 1984 before evolving into the more familiar ‘slant nose’ in 1986 that better integrated Wardle’s body kit with new front and rear bumpers. These later cars got lowering springs too. Different T16S body styles emerged over the years, including three-door hatchback, convertible and very rare – just 252 built – notchback two-door saloons. Early flat-nose cars are exceptionally rare. Many later slant nose 900s look like T16S cars but few are because the Aero kit could be added to any model after the fact.

Genuine T16S examples can therefore be hard to identify. Aside from the sports suspension, anti-roll bar and body kit – all easily retro-fitted of course – from 1991 it should have an ‘S’ badge on the boot and ‘T16S’ should be noted on the log book. To confuse matters further, SAAB and its dealers didn’t always bother to do that. So difficult. But perhaps it doesn’t matter: any SAAB 900 with the 16V 175bhp full-pressure turbo and body kit is a car to relish.

Drive a good T16S and you’ll discover a brutally quick yet surprisingly agile saloon with pin-sharp steering. The rare 2 doors drive the best as they have the stiffest shells, but any T16S is a treat. No surprise then that many have covered gargantuan mileages. Fortunately, these cars are so well engineered that they can withstand it. With values rising, restoration is becoming economically sensible, which is improving the quality of the available cars.

Few, if any ‘80s and ‘90s cars are quite like a T16S. Perhaps it’s time for you to discover this ‘80s classic for yourself. A car with its feet both in the ‘60s and the future. You know the drill…

With thanks to Matt Searle whose excellent book about the car ‘Icon’ can be found at www.abtech84.co.uk