SELF IMPROVEMENT

Saab vows to stay in  business

One of the stranger scenes at the New York Auto Show was at the unveiling of a hot new concept for Saab. The North American debut came against the drama of whether Saab will stay in business.

Even as he tried to describe PhoeniX concept, Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker, the sports car maker, and chairman of Saab, was trying to explain how a production shutdown from the automaker not having paid its bills amounted to a "glitch."

As you may recall, Saab was purchased by Dutch sports car maker Spyker a couple years ago when it was cast off by General Motors. All was going along fine until it had to stop production a week ago when a single supplier said it wasn't getting paid. That set off a wave of concern from other suppliers and, well, you get the picture.

Muller said that Saab's money trouble was due to a traditionally weak first quarter and that its loan would likely be approved at any moment from the European Investmant Bank, an outfit that handles important cases in the European Union like the crisis at Saab.

Saab has a fairly compelling case. Besides being a famous name in automaking -- not to mention aerospace, but that division spun off long ago -- the automaker employs 3,500 in Sweden and 500 more elsewhere in the world. The EU may want to save those jobs.