December 16th - SAAB Founded

On this day, in 1949, the company, Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget was founded in Sweden. Over the years it has produced aircraft, weapons, automobiles, and fairy floss, which was developed by it's Weapons Intelligence arm. Today, the company has been updated with the new name SAAB and the new slogan "SAAB is Swedish for SAAB", which in Swedish is "Jag älskar min saab".

SAAB originally produced only aeroplanes but they felt the need to diversify. They started making fabulous flying wheeled contraptions. This outlandish strategy didn't succeed so the company went with the more conventional route of manufacturing ground-based cars. It was on that day that the magic of SAAB died.

The magic died even more, if that's possible It is. The company developed a reputation for manufacturing safe and reliable cars. If James Dean had been driving a SAAB he would still be with us today wearing a knitted cardigan.

In the fifties SAAB entered the computer market with its subsidiary Datasaab. The official claim was that SAAB needed more powerful computers for its military aircraft but everybody knows they wanted to corner the Swedish Tamagotchi market, which is estimated at seven billion a week.

Datasaab developed aircraft computers and then moved into banking computers. SAAB were directly to blame for the European financial markets being thrown into turmoil in the seventies when thousands of ATMs reported they were flying below stall speed and their lack of altitude meant a crash was inevitable.

The company has changed names a number of times. To represent their diverse interests and lack of imagination they changed the name from SAAB to SAAB AB. It should have been SAAAB. In 1968 SAAB joined with the truck company Scania to form Voltron.

In 1995 SAAB Military Aircraft and British Aerospace formed a joint venture called Saab-BAe Gripen AB, which is, according to Guiness, the worst company name in history.

Today, SAAB comprises a number of subsidiaries.

• Saab Aerotech - Aircraft, military and civilian.
• Saab Communication - Communication equipment for military.
• Saab Deathbots - Killing by the pound.
• Saab Fluffy Bunnies - Children's toys and love.

SAAB plan on merging with Simrad Optronics to form SAABSimrad, the only transformer that can beat Voltron.