Grille and Sides

In 1974 Saab introduced the hatchback version of the 99. They called it the CombiCoupe or WagonBack in the USA. This would become a defining body style for Saab. At the same time they updated the grille design, changing it from metal to plastic. The plastic grilles are very fragile and it is rare to see a complete and perfect grille. The grille on my car is missing the tabs which connect the headlight surrounds to the center grille and the top chrome trim piece. Additionally the paint is faded. This sounds bad, but I've seen much worse. The tab at the top of the grille is good, as are the four outer tabs. There are also no cracks or missing slats.

I carefully removed the trim and badges.

Badges removed.

I sprayed the grille with SEM trim black. Then I masked off the areas that would remain black and sprayed the silver. I also taped the chrome trim rings around the headlight surrounds and sprayed those silver. The SAAB badge got a few coats of metallic gold pain. I sprayed the Turbo badge black and then sanded off the black from the letters. I have a feeling they used a similar process at the factory because of the brushed aluminum look on the original letters. This was replicated faithfully by the choosing the right grit sandpaper. 

After reassembly it looked pretty sharp.

I still need the top trim piece. The bottom is NOS via a friend (Jeff from ePartsland), via the Trollhattan world Saab convention. If you know of a good top trim piece I am interested. 

The paint had worn off the mirrors and the silver of the mirrors was failing. 

New mirrors are NLA so I had a local glass shop cut these replacement pieces. 

SEM trim black to the rescue...

Here are the grille and mirrors back on the car. Also, the air dam is back on. Looks pretty good. Still need to work on the hood.