I didn't buy my Saab NG900 because I wanted something different. I bought it because, after researching everything I could afford, it simply made the most sense. It had the space I needed, a turbocharged engine, a unique identity, excellent safety, and, at least to my eyes, it looked good.

It was 2005. The car was about eight years old. I paid $6,000 for a 1997 900 SE Turbo with roughly 60,000 miles.

I thought I was buying a used car. I didn't realize I was buying the next ten years of my life.

The Internet Is Wrong... Or At Least Incomplete

The NG900 has never had an easy life among enthusiasts. It was compared endlessly to the classic 900 that came before it. Too much GM. Not a "real" Saab. Not as pure.

I understood those arguments. Then I drove mine for more than 100,000 miles.

Everyone seems to know what the NG900 isn't. It isn't a classic 900. It isn't a 9000 Aero. It isn't "the last real Saab." Spend enough time on internet forums and you'll hear all the reasons not to buy one. I know, because I read those opinions before I bought mine in 2005.

Then I lived with one for the next ten years. That experience taught me something I've never forgotten.

Sometimes the world gets a car wrong.

More Than Specifications

When I bought my NG900, I wasn't looking for something quirky or different. I was looking for the best all-around car I could afford. I researched everything: Hondas, Volkswagens, BMWs, and Mazdas.

The Saab kept rising to the top. It wasn't perfect, but it had everything that mattered to me.

I didn't realize then that the things I'd remember most wouldn't be the specifications.

They would be the moments.

The Moments That Stayed With Me

I remember bringing home our adopted 150-pound Great Dane with the rear seats folded down. We gave him his name on the drive home.

I remember installing our daughter's car seat for the first time. It was so much easier than in our Accord, and I remember knowing she was safe in the back of a Saab.

I remember leaving work without my wallet, staring at a fuel gauge that claimed I had twelve miles left, and somehow making it twenty miles home.

I remember changing the brake pads and rotors in my driveway, the first repair I had ever attempted. It was the moment I thought, Maybe I can do this.

I remember the Direct Ignition Cassette failing in a parking lot. I left the car there, ordered the part, came back a few days later with a socket set, and drove it home.

Those are the memories that lasted. Not horsepower. Not skidpad numbers. Not magazine comparisons.

My First Saab

I never owned a classic 900. I experienced the NG900 the way thousands of people did in the late 1990s: as my first Saab.

I wasn't comparing it to the car that came before it. I was simply learning what made a Saab different.

For me, the NG900 became exactly what a good car should become. It faded into the background while life happened.

It was the car that took me to work on Monday and on road trips Friday. It carried me through more than 100,000 miles. It drove me to work and to class while I earned my second degree.

For five years it crossed South Georgia with me—Savannah, Statesboro, Brunswick, and countless miles in between. Then it moved with us to South Florida.

It took me to the airport for the interview that began my next career. Then it made the move to North Georgia and quietly carried me to that job every day.

At 160,000 miles, the fuel pump finally gave up. I sold it instead of fixing it.

Looking Back

For years I told myself selling it was the practical decision. Now I'm not so sure.

It had carried me through ten years of my life without ever asking for much in return. When it finally did, I wasn't there for it.

Twenty-one years later, it's strange that the NG900 still occupies such an uncertain place. It isn't collectible enough for collectors. It isn't new enough for most used-car buyers.

It sits quietly in the middle, waiting for someone willing to judge it on its own merits rather than its family tree.

When I sold my NG900, I thought I'd moved on. I've owned other cars since then. Better cars in some ways. Faster cars. More prestigious cars. None of them stayed with me the way the Saab did.

And yet every few years I find myself looking at another NG900.

I don't think that's nostalgia.

I think it's gratitude.

I thought I was buying a used car.

I didn't realize I was buying the next ten years of my life.

Maybe that's why I still defend the NG900. Or maybe it never needed defending at all.