The club began in the Fall of 1984 when Jim Smith, a friend of Brian Keenan of Keenan Saab in Grand Rapids, MI, came up with the idea of creating a car club around the several Saab enthusiasts he had gotten to know through the dealership, which was the only one in SW Michigan. Keenan Saab got started around 1981, filling a gap that had existed since the last dealer closed up around 1979. Jim and Brian arranged the meeting, sent out flyers to all owners in the dealerships data base, and many of us got to meet other Saab enthusiasts for the first time. Brian provided a good amount of food for us (I seem to recall a huge table full!) and arranged for some Saab movies for us to view. Movies... not videos...and we had a projector but no screen, so they showed them on the bumpy wallpaper in the showroom. It wasn't much, but it got us started! Many of us expressed an interest and signed up for additional mailings, which Jim created and mailed from his office in Grand Rapids.

There was a long gap after that, but the group finally got together again for something. A couple of these early events were color tours, one of which I was drafted to lead at the last minute. If you knew my lousy sense of direction, you could perhaps understand why we went around a small lake somewhere up north at least twice. But it was fun! Jim Smith recalled that there were 9 cars on the first color tour, and only two of them were Turbos. Since he had a Turbo, he took the last spot to help keep the group together. He said it was quite a sight when all 9 of us passed someone in an Oldsmobile, and the Olds driver thought so too! He also reminded me that his wife had noticed that we were seeing some of the sights on that little lake more than once, and began wondering who was leading the whole thing. Speculation was that is was something that I really enjoyed seeing. It took years to live that down!

Another event, which I was not at, was a rally that had as a prize a bottle of champagne from Keenan Saab. I recall hearing that the couple who won it were not speaking to each other by the time the rally was over! It soon became apparent that Jim's business (Smith Financial Services) and the West Point Alumni group he was starting were more than enough to keep him busy. As a result, the as-yet-unnamed club was not meeting very often. We had a meeting at Jim's office and I, like an idiot, offered to type and mail (this in the days before email and Windows) a newsletter to the few people on our list. I don't recall how many there were, but it was less than 20. Jim and I and Nick Kohn and Dave Nelson and Eric Hansen met at Jim's a couple of times and set up some monthly meetings with dates and locations, and I started sending stuff out. That coupled with little articles that I picked up from other members and gradually, other Saab newsletters that I started receiving, became what was first called "Saab's It", a name based on something someone had read years ago. An odd name, but it caught your attention! About this time we started the color tour/winery tradition, often going down to the PawPaw area for a drive and then ending up at one of the local winerys for wine tasting, and then on to dinner. The first time we did that I recall that it was a good thing that we decided to eat directly across the street from the winery, as many of us were in no shape to drive. We also met at people's houses a lot, and on at least one occasion did a "progressive dinner" to about 4 homes around SW and central Michigan. We also met at the Hansen's in Greenville frequently, Walt and Pat Prinz's, also in Greenville, and sometimes at our house in Holland. Many times Jim Smith took along his cold "Fruit Soup" that many enjoyed, so I put the recipe in the newsletter so everyone could enjoy it, amongst the Saabs for sale and technical help.

We met a lot in the old days, often monthly in the Grand Rapids area, as many of us were centered there. We soon found a new event to try out, this being the new "National Saab Owners Conventions" that were starting to be held around the country. I joined the "National Saab Owners Club" newsletter that was just being taken over by a fellow by the name of Tim Winker, from Duluth Minnesota. Tim kept a list of clubs all around the country and kept us up on what else was going on in the Saab world outside of Michigan. There was a lot! We decided to check this out, so in 1986 several of us caravaned to Atlanta GA to the 3rd SOC, on one of the hottest days of the Summer.... 105F and no A/C in my car! But it was fun, we had a small concours (I got 2nd), the GLSC wiped out the prizes at the trivia contest, and we had a great time at the banquet and the other activities. I recall that "Corvette's Bar (with a real Corvette) and their "hot legs" contest was one of them. This really developed our thirst for Saab activities, so we kept meeting frequently back in Michigan, with trips to auto shows, Fall color tours and visits to dealers like Trio Motors and Keenan Saab to see the "new" 9000s (with ABS!!). I recall driving a new 9000T down the freeway and, upon seeing the traffic clear, would nail the brakes to see just how the ABS would respond. Unfortunately, the rear seat cushion would not latch securely, so Tad Gilliam spent lots of time trying to stay off the back of my seat! And did the brakes ever smell when we brought that car back......

Trips to Saab conventions continued, with memorable convoys to Tulsa, OK (the "TulSaab Trip") in 1987 and various parts of the NE US in later years. On the trip to Tulsa we picked up about a dozen cars and had quite a convoy going. We made many new friends, got to know many others, and lost a few along the way. One of these was Margrit Adler, my dear friend from Champaign IL who I met on the way to Tulsa. Margrit was a Saab enthusiast from the 60s, having gotten into Saabs via the two-stroke and Sonett models, and she among others got me interested in the older cars. She was legendary in the Saab community for her love of the old cars and her natural ability to work on them, as she got herself trained as a mechanic. I eventually bought a 99, then another 99... soon that turned into a Sonett and then much later, some 96s. And it all started with a new 900. Margrit and I corresponded (before email) in the early 90s, but she found she had cancer, and passed away after a long battle in 1995, at the age of 65. Saab enthusiasts from around the Midwest came to what was my first (but not last) "Saab funeral".

The club continued to prosper, and we gradually gained new members around the state. With more members spread out all over the state of MI, it got to be hard to meet so frequently. The newsletter, also, was getting to be quite a burden for me to produce. For a while we charged dues, but keeping track of it all, getting people to renew and playing editor at the same time got to be too much. What to do? With the advent of email, as well as Internet services, my problems were pretty much solved. I dropped the hard-copy newsletter in about 1996, notifying everyone far in advance that it was going to happen. Unfortunately we lost a few long-time members, but some of this was because their interests had changed to other things besides Saabs (gasp!). The newsletter had long been renamed "The Saab Scene" , so I put together an email list and we took off from there. This is the form we see it in today. In 2001, I finally got around to creating a simple web site, if for no other reason than the fact that so many other clubs have them. So far it has not gotten a lot of use, but there is potential if anyone wants to utilize it. In addition, a few of us are helping on the SOC02 committee in Ohio this year, learning what it takes to run a national Saab owners convention for anywhere from 500-1500 people. It takes a lot, I can tell you that! Perhaps this will be the learning phase so that some of us can organize a future SOC in Michigan, as several sites are already interested in hosting it.

Many thanks to Jim Smith for his help in recalling some of these past events.

Jim (more to come)