Saab restarted its production lines Friday after a long layoff. The Swedish car company was shut down for seven weeks due to serious financial problems. These problems included a lack of money with which to pay suppliers. Many of its suppliers stopped making deliveries to the plant on April 5, 2011, which forced the automaker to shut down. Now that the Trollhatten factory is open again Saab claims to have orders for 8,000 cars.

The automobile manufacturer has long had financial problems. Production has been in serious decline for several years. In 2010 Saab produced only 32,048 cars, down from 102,915 in 2007. The car company’s line-up currently consists of variations on just three different models. These are the 9-3, the 9-4x and the 9-5. The company also has two new models in development, one of which is not due out until the fall of 2012. General Motors, which owned the brand from 2000 until 2010, almost shut down the line when it had a difficult time finding a buyer. GM still supplies Saab with engines and transmissions. It also makes the Saab 9-4x. When GM located a buyer it had to obtain a loan from the European Investment Bank to complete the deal. The Swedish government guaranteed the loan.

The Dutch automaker Spyker Cars NV purchased Saab from GM and became the parent company of the brand in February of 2010. Last week Spyker announced that Pang Da Automobile of China will be buying a 24% stake in the company. This will allow Saab to finally move forward on its long-planned return to China. Saab wants to begin selling cars in China as soon as possible and eventually hopes to move its production there. Pang Da has provided Saab with the much-needed financing to pay its bills and resume production. How the deal will affect the models Saab is currently developing is not clear. Read the rest of this entry »