The End of Swedish Saabs?

Autoblog is reporting that the Saab 9-5 will move to Germany when it changes over to a new generation, leaving Trollhattan with no volume Saab product. The unnamed source reports that the Swedish plant will be used to build "niche products".

From an older TrollhattanSaab post:

Fast-forward to today, and there's the real possibility that GM may turn Saab
into either a resounding success that echoes Saab's past, or, that they may turn
Saab into a great crass-market producer of vehicles that are pretty much like
all the others.
...

GM have tossed out a couple of bones this week. The
retention of the Trollhattan plant is a good thing and the fact that Saabs will
continue to be made there for a few years at least is, likewise, a good
thing. These were the sweeteners for the bitter pill to come in today's
announcement: that Saabs will not always be Swedish.

Is this the beginning of the end of Saab? Does it matter to customers if Saabs are a mix of re-badged GM, Subaru, and Opel products, none of which are built or engineered in Sweden?

I have never been much of a Saab fan, though I do think their recent Swedish products are sharp. The Saabaru and re-badged Envoy don't do much for me. As a Volvo owner, I can say that it wasn't the Swedishness that appeals to me, so much as the Volvo-ness, a certain design style, with certain priorities. GM needs to be careful, to keep the Saab-ishness of Saab, or they will kill the brand.

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