Saab Stories - The Nautilus

I bought my first car in 1968. It was a jet-black 1960 Saab 93. It had 3 port holes on each side of the hood and suicide doors that flipped open like clam shells, ready to catch the wind.

I bought the Saab for $300 from an Australian in Culver City, California. The Aussie talked out of the side of his mouth (he'd been shark scarred somewhere off the Barrier Reef and asymmetrically stitched back together).

"She's a sweet potato, mate."

I believed him and laid down every dime I had. I bought a Saab solely on the strength of a bit part the car played in Richard Farina's ultra-hip novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

This narrowed my choices for my first car to a Saab or a Citroen 2CV. I was into the reverse status of obscure foreign cars. The 2CV looked (and drove) like a corrugated trash can on wheels; the Saab was like a bastard child of a Porsche and a VW Bug. 

This Saab was sleek, black, and mysterious. She had portholes on each side of the hood that earned her a nickname: The Nautilus. Finally, I had a car that was  "way cool?" long before the term was coined.

The Nautilus had a pull-chain activated grill flap that sealed up the engine compartment for sub-zero Swedish driving. After a cruise on an LA freeway, the heater could bring the red metal dashboard up to egg-frying temperatures. Revving produced a mad popcorn-like pinging set of 2-stroke explosions punctuated by gouts of blue smoke. Take your foot off the pedal, and freewheeling delivered a cliff dive every time you crested a hill.

What a great car.

Eighteen hours after I bought The Nautilus, the engine seized. My girlfriend drove it to the beach. There it died; it would 2-stroke no more. The lady swore she had mixed the oil in with the gas. But the engine seized anyway 

Less than a day into my first car, I started what would become a lifetime of Saab stories.

The Nautilus was towed to Lindqvist Motors in Culver City. A new engine would be $300, thank-you-very-much. Exactly what I'd paid the Aussie for the beautiful sleek hunk of immobile Swedish metal.

The Nautilus sat in Ingvar Lindqvist's back lot for three months (no doubt Ingvar was away rallying his Saab through Baja). I worked as a car jockey at Lou Ehlers Casa de Cadillac on Wilshire Blvd to earn bail money. I slipped 100's of Detroit blimps in and out of mechanic's stalls to save the money for a rebuilt engine that would drive me north to Berkeley, California, in the summer of '68.

Eventually, The Nautilus lived again. I took advantage of the fold down the rear seat to turn The Nautilus into a spud-shaped truck. I packed all my worldly goods into the car, using every cubic inch of storage space to make the move north. I must have looked like the hippy version of the clown car act when I unloaded my Saab at my first apartment in South Berkeley.

I cruised California reveling in the" What is that?" looks of middle-class America. I'd silently freewheel down on a Rambler wagon and fly by a black blur shrouded in two-stroke smoke. I drove the Natulus from Berkeley to L.A. and back a dozen times, averaging about 40 miles to the gallon.               

I could fill a dry gas tank with 96-octane Supreme for $2.97. Often attendants would refuse to add two-stroke oil during a fill-up. 

"You put oil in the gas, and she'll blow, buddy. I ain't doing it!"

I'd tilt that blue and white Saab oil can into the gas tank, trying not to dribble down the fender while the attendant and his buddies scratched their heads and pointed at the weird machine.  

The Nautilus really was way cool.

Well after midnight, on a return run from L.A., I found the outside of the freewheeling envelope. After a long climb, I was coasting the Grapevine on Highway 99, freewheeling and flying low on a long cruise to Bakersfield. The speed jumped quickly - 70, 80, 90, I tried the brakes, but they weren't serious about stopping me. Besides, I was trying to stretch the miles per gallon.  

With the speedometer bumping a hundred, I began to worry about the tires. I felt like a skater on thin rickety blades. By now, the brakes were useless. 

I had only myself to blame as I'd pointedly ignored the advice of the manual about locking the free wheel " ...to utilize the braking action of the engine when going down steep mountain grades... " 

Stiff-armed, I pointed the 93 at the fast lane and held on.

Suddenly the tiny rearview mirror lit up with the blinding high beams of a 16-wheeler charging down on top of me. The trucker was on his own freewheeling breakaway.                                  

The truck blew at 140 mph, belching eye-watering clouds of burning brake lining. The big truck's backwash blew me across three lanes. I wrestled The Nautilus back into the fast lane and rolled on.               

I finally coasted down to safe speeds on the flats. I didn't have any trouble staying awake that night. I Bet I averaged 50 miles per gallon that run too.

I was a mechanical ignoramus depending on the Berkeley Saab agency to get me going when I broke down.   Finances dictated a fix it when it stops approach. Other than a set of brakes and a slipping fan belt that sidelined me near Big Sur at 3 a.m. The Nautilus treated me well. 

I cringe now when I remember that due to the insidious effects of 

"Flower Power," the Saab acquired an Indian bedspread headliner. It was a green and tan paisley that also adorned the door panels.

A young arrogance, a heavy foot, and the call of Saab's rally heritage finally did the Nautilus in. 

Idling a stoplight in Oakland, I glanced over at a blue-haired pensioner in a highly polished  Plymouth Valiant four-door sedan. She eyed me nervously. Obviously, she wanted to drag.

When the light changed, I revved the 2-stroke, blasted a cloud of blue smoke, and popped the clutch. The front tires chirped and stuttered. The Nautilus surged forward, lurched violently, and rolled to a metal-clattering halt in the intersection. A broken right front axle clanked hideously from down below. I was stranded and humiliated in the middle of the road. The Valiant, without so much as a glance from the driver, drove past me.

I was broke. A busted axle meant a dead Saab. I remember pushing dejectedly on the door jam. The open wing of the suicide door threatened to scoop me up as we gathered speed down the hill. I jumped in for a last miserable freewheel onto a residential side street. 

I was too broke to rescue it. 

So my first car, a jet-black 1960 Saab 93 with portholes on the hood, gathered dust, weeds, and bird droppings until it was tagged, towed, and totaled in an Emeryville car crusher.

I didn't know it then, but I was permanently hooked on Saabs. This first experience set the pattern for the rest of my automotive life. I tried to kick the Saab habit with Corvairs and VW's, Rovers, and Jaguars. Then I'd relapse, buy an old two-stroke or a couple of V4s, find a dead Saab in a field, and toe it home. I even bought a 900 EMS at a car auction. It burst into electrical flames the day I bought it). 

For years Volvo's were the best Methadone. I drove more sensible Swedish for years! 

Then my willpower collapsed last summer, and I bought a 1971 Saab 96 V4 (Desert Sand, rally rigged). I couldn't pass it by.

While zipping through the midwinter Tahoe slush, I thought of the tell-tale two-stroke ring and pop of The Nautilus. 

Another slippery slope

I still miss that car.