Saab 9-4X

Saabs second new model since being bought by Spyker was rolled out at Los Angeles although it owes much to General Motors, its former parent company.

The 9-4X, a luxury mid-sized crossover, is based on the Cadillac SRX and will be built alongside that car at a GM plant in Mexico.

It will go on sale in the UK next summer, but there are no plans for a diesel, so it is unlikely to find many buyers on this side of the Atlantic. The engines currently on offer in America are a 265bhp 3.0-litre petrol V6 and the 2.8-litre V6 turbo found in top-end versions of the Saab 9-5, tuned to deliver 300bhp.

Front- and four-wheel-drive versions will be available. The all-wheel-drive system shuffles torque between the front and rear axles rapidly to ensure optimum traction as road conditions change. It is combined with a limited-slip differential at the rear, which can transfer up to 50% of the torque from one wheel to the other when traction is at a premium. Drive Sense, Saabs electronic adaptive damping system, will also be offered, as will a variable-effort steering system.

The 9-4X sits between the mid-sized 9-3 and the new 9-5 in size, and is the second part of the Swedish companys recovery plan, which would have gone ahead even had GM remained in control.
Saab will show the estate version of the new 9-5 at the Geneva motor show next spring.

Much of the 9-4Xs interior and equipment echoes the style of the 9-5 launched this summer, but the exterior is less adventurous than that of the 9-4X concept car revealed a couple of years ago.

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