As the eyes of the world are watching the so-far-hopeless struggles of Swedish manufacturer Saab, burdened by debt to its suppliers, the auto maker has not given up its plans to become one of the most important players on the market. According to the latest rumors, this September, Saab will present the new generation of the 9-3 model at the Frankfurt Auto Show.
I think it might be a bit early to present the car a whole year before it goes on sale, and would have guessed Geneva in March next year instead. Another thing that makes the autoevolution article seem a bit uninformed, is that they still refer to the next 9-3's platform as Epsilon I.
Slotted to become the second model that will take part in the Saab revival offensive, the new 9-3 will borrow the platform in use for the current model, but modified to meet the requirements of a new model.
Referring to the Epislon I platform might be correct to a degree, but Saab now calls this platform Phoenix and says that it's a new modular platform. My guess is that the Phoenix platform is a modular platform developed from the Epsilon I, and that the development has gone so far that it more or less is a completely new platform.
