New Saab X Concepts at British Motor Show

New Saab 9-4X BioPower SUV crossover concept and 9-X BioHybrid C-Segment hatch concept give traditional Swedish car manufacturer a newly energised lease of design life as it targets next generations at British Motor Show.

Saab strikes us as rather similar to Volvo. Both are Swedish for a start, both manufacture obedient, stoic cars for those that like to go largely unnoticed, be that in the supermarket or office car park, and both are incredibly popular.

Take Saab’s looks for example. Sometimes it teeters perilously close to the Q-car ethos, of lamb dressed up as mutton to confuse other road users, only to then unleash the Gods of war when least suspecting.

Think no further than the mental Saab 900 Turbos that although taking on the appearance of an environmental dwelling for compact Scandinavians, actually went like stink when you blipped the throttle thanks to Saab’s insistence on turbo charging swathes of its automotive parish with religious regularity.

Yet the 900 Turbos aside, in many ways Saab’s designs have been neither here, nor there, and some of its looks down the years haven’t been able to support the performance or feel of what lies beneath the surface sadly.

That’s until now though, and the arrival of the Saab X Concepts.

There’s two of them here at the British Motor Show, and both look the part as well as feel it.

The Saab 9-4 X BioPower Concept is a useful-looking SUV crossover that will see the Swedish auto maker stare out the established off-road likes of the Land Rover Freelander and Honda CR-V for bragging rights in 2009. Chiefly amongst the type of people who sport cagoules and like to pin kayaks to their utility vehicles.

A spectrum apart is the Saab 9-X BioHybrid Concept, a nifty hatchback that will slog it out for C-Segment dominance with the Audi A3 as early as 2010. Fusing what Saab likes to call its ‘progressive design’ characteristics with efficient, eco-savvy performance that the 30-something with a penchant for gadgetry might quite like to swan around in.

As you ogle the Saab 9-4X BioPower and 9-X BioHybrid Concepts, you’d have to have a heart made from stone if you didn’t consider these vehicles didn’t ooze style from every pore. Indeed, it’s only beauty that seeps from the important orifices, with the 9-4X Concept and 9-X Concept being sworn members of Saab’s BioPower allegiance.

However even these changes may upset some. Both vehicles come with petrol and diesel power trains, yet will share motoring duties with the biofuel engines. Engines that are primed to run on ethanol-rich fuel, which of course is making headlines at the moment for all the wrong reasons.

Detractors are arguing that biofuels such as the flavour Saab use in conjunction with these X Concepts are responsible for worldwide food shortages and the consequent price hikes that consumers are presently facing up to. And that’s alongside growers across the globe taking advantage of the West’s sudden needs for fuel crops and systematically culling more of the rainforests.

With this in mind Saab is acutely aware of such sensitivities, and stresses that other sustainable sources could easily provide the answer, such as waste wood pulp and algae that grows in the sea.

Whatever the outcome, what Saab is attempting to do with its X Concepts is to primarily ensure the earth’s longevity – one way or another - whilst still allowing its drivers to travel with earth-shattering haste, by combining its BioPower technological developments with good old-fashioned Saab turbo charging solutions. But more than that, with a degree of style.