#9-5

Consumer Reports recently compared four luxury sedans in the January issue of the magazine, pitting the Audi A6 against the Infiniti M35h, Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec and Saab 9-5, with the refreshed A6 receiving an overall test score of 93, tying Infiniti’s M37 at the top of the charts. The previous generation A6 had scored a disappointing 79.

Union employees working for Saab are growing impatient after the automaker said it could not pay wages to its workers because it had not yet obtained necessary short-term funding. The unions have threatened legal action that could end in bankruptcy for the automaker. The IF Metall and Unionen groups will send a formal demand for payment this Monday if their members have not received their unpaid wages. “Then the company has seven days to react,” IF Metall representative Veli-Pekka Saikkala told Reuters. “After that there are two alternatives. Either we see that the situation can be solved, or we demand that Saab is put into bankruptcy.”

Saab will finally gain some stability, as the company will resume production tomorrow at its Trollhattan, Sweden, assembly plant.

See, the new 9-5 Aero is one hot piece of Swedish luxury sedan, with just enough Born From Jets / Northern Europe detailing to make us forget most of it is from General Motors. Saab has updated its website with a new configurator that not only lets you play around with color and wheel options (no trim options just yet) — but lets you watch a whack of cool design videos featuring a smartly-dressed man.

Apparently General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson thinks the upcoming Saab 9-5 is so good, he doesn’t want to sell the Swedish automaker. In an interview in Sweden’s Expressen magazine he declares that he’d rather see Saab fail in bankruptcy court than sell off the brand.