Report: Dutch Exotic Car Maker Spyker Top Candidate in Bidding for Saab

Dutch exotic car maker Spyker is likely the favored candidate in the resumed bidding for GM’s Saab division. Saab went back on the open market just a few weeks ago when a group led by Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg retracted its offer.

In an report published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet a source described GM’s top candidate in a way that almost certainly points to Spyker. Here are the details: the favored candidate has small scale experience in car production and it intends to keep production, design and development in Sweden. The source also said that the favored company is one that has already been mentioned in the press.

Last year Spyker sold just 43 vehicles, but they all came at a serious price, topping $294,200. It also has strong investment from Russian banking tycoon Vladimir Antonov. In the past, Spyker has even run a Formula 1 team and it continues to race its cars in endurance races in Europe.

General Motors had created a self imposed deadline of January 1st to sell-off the Swedish auto division and just recently company spokesman Chris Preuss has said that, “a decision about Saab is going to come very soon.”

An additional candidate in the running is China’s Beijing Auto (or BAIC), which is interested in the Saab’s tooling a technology behind the previous generation of cars in order to build those vehicles for the Chinese market. BAIC had agreed to support the Koenigsegg-led deal in exchange for those assets but when that deal fell through has offered once again to buy them.

It seems that the sale of some assets to BAIC, as well as the sale of current technology, production and design assets to Spyker is a possibility.

While there is hope for the future of the Saab brand, General Motors has had little success in parting-out its many divisions. The company is in the process of closing its Pontiac unit but couldn’t find a buyer for the Saturn brand after a deal with the Penske Automotive Group fell through. A deal to sell Hummer to a Chinese industrial equipment manufacturer has yet to be completed.

[Source: Reuters]