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February 23, 2007
Saab customers, VIP guests and dealers from all over the world are being greeted with 'a cab on the rocks' when they arrive for the Saab Ice Experience event at Sweden's world famous ICE HOTEL.
Saab broke the ice when it pioneered the concept of an open-top car providing practical, all-year-round transport. So it was clearly a cool idea to 'freeze frame' the latest Saab 9-3 Convertible in a garage made from ice at the hotel, near Jukkasjarvi in northern Sweden, 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
Visible at night from a kilometre away, the icy reflections of the Convertible's illuminated bright blue paintwork give arriving guests an automotive interpretation of the Northern Lights. The installation, added to this year's version of the ICE HOTEL, is made from 60 ice blocks, weighing 30 tonnes, all harvested from the nearby Torne river, one of Europe's purest.
Saab is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and the new Anniversary Convertible model was chosen to light up the sky. About 500 guests will attend the event, which finishes on March 18, although test driving will not include the ice-bound Convertible.
"Snow and ice are core elements of Scandinavian nature, so it was a very natural step for us to adopt this theme for our Convertible, the original car for all seasons,' says Marie Larsson, Saab's Event Project Manager.
"Sweden also has a strong tradition for environmental care. For example, the ice used to build this hotel is a renewable resource that is recycled each year when it melts and returns to the river. In a similar way, our Saab BioPower engines are able to run on bioethanol, a renewable fuel with a greatly reduced CO2 impact."
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