IEDEI

During the time of the original Saab Sonnet 1, there were 6 cars produced by SAAB.  Apparently one of those cars was taken by a SAAB designer/employee named Sigvard Sorenson—–to be transformed in his backyard into something quite peculiar!  The SAAB Facett was born!  This was neither an official prototype OR product from SAAB.  This was just a product of one man’s passion for doing something unique.  He built it right on top of one of the original 6 Sonett 1 roadsters.

Some interesting insight into the car from Saab History

“According to the Continental magazines, the Facett was another prototype being used by Saab to test the public reaction and taste. The truth is that they were way off the mark. From the beginningto end, the Facett was a backyard project and the only connection the builder, Sigvard Sorensen, had with Saab was that he was employed in the design department in Trollhättan.

The story begins when one of the first six Sonetts was offered for sale to the employees at Saab in the early sixties. The company had neither the available space or desire to store all the cars in a shed so they simply sold off the cars they felt were superflouos.

Sigvard Sorensen took up the offer and bought himself a bright green Saab Sonett Super Sport. The car was rather impractical, to say the least, and Sorensen started thinking about what he could do to make it more useful.

He began by removing the plastic body and went to work on the chassis. The fuel tank was moved from its odd position in the front wing to between the rear wheels where it was well protected against all types of accidents + standard procedure on all Saabs with the exception of the six Sonett Is.

The original engine was rejected in favor of a standard sport engine which was more suited to everyday driving than a temperamental, highly tuned racing engine. At this stage Sorensen realized that he would have to build a completely new body sheel and preferably with a hardtop. To get the car driveable quicker, he decided to use sheet metal instead of fiberglass.”

NOW! the story gets even more interesting.  That original Saab Facett (pictured only at the TOP of this post) had been converted back into a green Saab Sonett sometime after by a different owner.  All of the steel bodywork Sigvard had done to the car was removed and the car was restored back to being a roadster.  HOWEVER, this owner (Rene Hirsch) commissioned a german company to replicate the chassis and the original Facett using the same body panels which were removed to re-create the roadster.  So in effect, now BOTH can be seen together again…..the Green Sonett is the original car as SAAB produced it out of the factory—-the white Facett is a recreation of the custom Facett that Sigvard had made after buying the green roadster.  6 Saab Sonett roadsters exist; and now there’s a Facett to join them rather than take one’s place.

multiple sources were used for this article: Saab History,  Madle, and a nice article by George Achorn which clarified some of the confusion @ Turbonines