ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) — Saab Cars North America plans to locate its headquarters in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.
Company spokeswoman Michele Tinson tells The Associated Press the automaker will bring about 60 employees to the site after the Michigan Economic Growth Authority on Tuesday approved a tax incentive worth more than $1 million.
Tinson said Royal Oak also approved a tax break for the project. She said work moving in employees should begin Wednesday.
General Motors sold Saab Automobile AB to Dutch carmaker Spyker Cars NV in a $74 million deal in January. Tinson says most of the employees formerly were based at GM's downtown Detroit headquarters in the Renaissance Center.
Spyker Cars now is the parent company of Saab Automobile and Saab Cars North America.
For Saab, the Swedish carmaker owned by General Motors, it doesn't look like a hero is going to sweep in and save the day.
"It's real easy. Just show up with the money, and you can have it," GM CEO and Chairman Ed Whitacre told reporters Wednesday. But, "No one's showed up with the money."
GM has begun "winding down" Saab — killing it — after failing for more than a year to find a buyer for the Swedish brand with an aircraft heritage and reputation for quirky design. Talks with the last potential buyer could wrap up later Thursday.
The odds were always against a happy ending, even if 2009 hadn't been terrible for the industry.
There are only a handful of global companies that would clearly be equipped to take on a car brand. Investors were never going to lend money to just anyone with the dream of owning a car company.
To qualify as a buyer, a company would need to have a track record of making some sort of vehicle and be able to show it had the financial wherewithal at least to provide service and keep making replacement parts for Saabs for the full warranty period, which could be five years or up to 100,000 miles.
And it isn't just major investors who've shown a reluctance to put money into a Saab. Some banks, including Bank of America, now are asking potential buyers of Saab cars to put down larger down payments. The lenders are showing little confidence the brand will survive and are hedging their risk on the value of Saab "orphans" as used cars once the company is gone.
Spyker, a Dutch luxury carmaker, still is in the running, trying to put together a deal to buy Saab, but the deadline on GM's patience to get the deal done is today. Spyker CEO Victor Muller has been talking publicly about what he would do with Saab, even though his time is running out.
But gloomy prospects did not stop a small group of Saab loyalists from showing up in frigid Detroit this week to try to pressure GM into keeping the brand alive until a sale can be worked out.
On Tuesday, they convened in an icy parking lot outside GM's downtown headquarters, waving "Save Saab" signs. But just 28 Saabs filled the lot, and there were as many reporters as protesters.
One pointed out, however, that this was more people than have shown up to protest GM's decision to kill Pontiac or Saturn.
"I want to see Saab live. I think it would be such a loss," said Suzanne Shelata of Hamburg, Mich., who bought her first Saab in 1997. She's still driving it, and hopes she'll have a chance to buy another.
General Motors Co. said it would wind down its Saab business, marking the near-certain death of one of Sweden's most storied companies and a car brand with a small but devoted following.
GM had given itself a final chance to complete a sale of the quirky 62-year-old luxury auto maker by year's end. But it said unsolvable issues arose in late-stage negotiations Friday to sell the company to Spyker Cars NV, a Dutch maker of ultraluxury sports cars.
It is the second time this year that GM's plans to sell an ailing brand have collapsed. Its efforts to sell Saturn also failed, and the company reversed itself on plans to sell its European car maker, Opel.
While bidders could still emerge for Saab's remaining assets, including two yet-to-be-launched models, GM's announcement ushers the car manufacturer spawned from a Swedish plane maker to the junkyard along with Saturn and Pontiac.
In the end, Saab proved to have too small a following to attract large auto makers looking for scale in a global recession.
The potential buyers it did attract, such as Swedish boutique car maker Koenigsegg Group AB, ran into trouble financing the acquisition.
Few of the car brands that have met their demise this year stirred the passions among car lovers that Saab did.
Saab's offbeat Scandinavian style and unique features, such as an ignition placed between the front seats, won it a small but loyal following in the U.S., where it has been a favorite among the academic set.
"It's a sad news day for Saab owners," said Chris McPherson of Cumming, Ga., who has owned a Saab on and off since he bought his first one, a 1967 Saab 96 sedan, right out of high school in 1973.
GM's announcement also means that little is left of Sweden's once venerable car industry, and what remains may soon be acquired by Chinese car makers. Ford Motor Co. remains in talks to sell its Volvo unit to China's Zhejiang Geely Holdings Group.
GM executives said Friday that their decision to shutter Saab's operations wouldn't affect plans to sell some intellectual property and equipment for old Saab models to Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co.
Disposing of Saab is part of a broader GM strategy to slim down the company and focus on the four brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick -- it believes are its strongest.
But GM's decision drew a sharp response from Swedish government officials who had been involved in the last-ditch talks to save Saab.
Most of the 3,400 people Saab employs world-wide work at its main plant in Trollhattan, Sweden.
"GM could have done much more to help Saab," Swedish Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson told reporters.
Spyker's chief executive, Victor Muller, said GM had declined to extend its self-imposed deadline, contending that his company had lined up most of the required financing, though it was still awaiting approval for a [euro ]400 million ($572 million) loan from the European Investment Bank.
But GM Vice President John Smith, who led the Saab negotiations, said that GM concluded that extending the deadline wouldn't have resolved the snags, which weren't identified.
"Like everybody we would have preferred a different outcome," he said.
GM's European chief, Nick Reilly, said Saab, which has roughly 1,100 dealers, would continue to pay its debts, such as payments to suppliers. It will also honor warranties and provide service and parts to current Saab owners.
Though GM wouldn't elaborate on a timetable for winding down the operations, it said the process would start in January.
GM bought a 50% stake in Saab -- founded in 1937 to build planes for the Swedish Air Force -- 20 years ago and took full ownership in 2000.
But Saab's earlier models and their design and engineering idiosyncracies -- such as their outsized rear hatches and the ignition locks -- are what attracted legions of Saabophiles.
So did Saab's reputation as a safety pioneer: Its cars were the first to be fitted with safety belts and impact absorbing bumpers.
"You could have fun with the car, and it handled better than most," said Mr. McPherson, 54, who drives a 1990 red Saab 900 convertible and recycles old Saabs as a business. Plus, he said, "it didn't look like everyone else's car."
Many analysts say GM's takeover of Saab led to better produced cars. But it also dulled the brand's distinct luxury image, and the American parent failed to freshen up Saab's model lineup in recent years.
Saab hasn't made a profit since 2001. It had a loss estimated at three billion Swedish crowns ($413 million) in 2008 and is expected to lose a similar amount this year. The number of Saab cars sold is expected to dwindle to fewer than 50,000 this year, less than 1% of GM's total production.
GM began the search for a buyer for Saab in January as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and decided to shed four of its eight brands.
Last month, though, the company reversed plans to sell its European car brand Opel to a group led by Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc.
A deal to sell its Saturn brand to racing mogul Roger Penske also fell through.
STOCKHOLM -- General Motors Co. is in talks to sell parts of Saab Automobile's old technology to a Chinese company and the entire brand to another buyer, a person familiar with the negotiations said Sunday.
The person said GM plans to sell the technology behind the Saab models 93 and 95 to Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the deals.
The person said the sale of the old technology to Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings will help GM financially but won't stand in the way of a deal to sell the entire Saab brand and its current production to another buyer. Negotiations for such a deal are also taking place, the source said, but declined to say with whom.
General Motors earlier this month said it will phase out the Saab brand if it doesn't find a buyer for the brand before the end of December. About 4,500 jobs at Saab are at stake.
However, GM said new potential buyers had emerged after Sweden's Koenigsegg Automotive AB dropped out of a deal to buy the company in November.
Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings was originally part of the Koenigsegg team and said it would re-evaluate Saab after that deal fell through. The Chinese company didn't return calls seeking comment Sunday.
Private equity firm The Renco Group Inc. and investor group Merbanco Inc. are reportedly also interested in Saab.
