July 25, 2021
The weekend of July 17th I was invited to give a talk at the SAAB Owner’s Convention in Albany New York.
Tim Winker, a participant in GAMRR 2019 and long time SAAB owner mentioned to the club secretary that I might be able to put something together highlighting SAAB’s dominance of the 1956 Great American Mountain Rallye.
I looked at this is a great opportunity to see some great vintage SAABs (I owned a ’71 99 & ’88 900S in the past).
I also thought this would be a good way to get some exposure for my event this coming September. After all how cool would it be to have a group of vintage SAABs running around Vermont!
Over the past few years I have collected various articles and stories about SAAB’s participation in the 1956 GAMR.
With info from my archives and additional information from Tim I put together a Power Point and presented it to about 35 people.
There was much interest from the group, but surprisingly enough there was not much additional info that the group could provide.
Seems as though the background history of this event; apparently including the trophies they won were disposed of quite a few years ago when they were cleaning house. The story goes that some one from Chrysler was hired to oversee SAAB and to him past history was not worth keeping. (What a shame!). It also so happens that this hire did not last long at SAAB; but the damage was done!
Following are some excerpts from my Power Point as well as from Tim Winker’s recent story in The Nines publication which is the SAAB Owner’s Club of North America publication. (Thanks Tim).
SAAB enters the US with a bang at the 1956 Great American Mountain Rallye.
As a small manufacturer, SAAB did not have funds for a big advertising budget to introduce their cars to the U. S. market. Instead, SAAB chose to bring attention to their product via motor sports. An initial plan to enter two cars in the 12-Hours of Sebring was deemed too expensive. SAAB’s motor sports background was primarily in rallies, so they decided to enter a three car team in the Great American Mountain Rallye, to be held over three days around Thanksgiving.
The three SAABs were to be driven by Rolf Mellde, chief test driver for SAAB with American Morrow Mishkin as navigator in car #50. Bob Wehman and Louis Braun were teamed up in #51, and husband and wife Gerald and Doris Jankowitz were in #52.
Mellde arrived only a few weeks before the start of the rally, bringing with him a large stock of tyres and parts.
The work was carried out on the second floor of a warehouse just off New York’s Broadway under anything but ideal conditions.
Originally demonstration models, the three completely standard cars (one white, one grey and one light green) were now equipped with Halda Speed Pilots.
Preparations were completed on Monday, November 19th, with a little over 24 hours before the three SAAB teams were to start the rallye.
The first day’s route into Vermont included such well known passes as Smugglers Notch and Lincoln Gap. But at the Lincoln Gap there was trouble. Cars were in the ditches and others choked the way. Number 50 was forced to stop; when the way was clear again the ascent was so steep that it was impossible, without full chains, to gain sufficient traction to get underway. But rather than take time to fit chains, Mellde elected to turn the car around and then proceeded to charge towards the summit, this time running the car back wards! The strategy was successful and the car was soon speeding on its way.
Snow and ice covered most of the roads, and temperatures dropped to 10 degrees below zero, but the SAAB teams motored on in the comfort of cars built to tackle such conditions.
At the end of day 1 Wehman and Braun in SAAB #51 checked in to St. Johnsbury as the overall leaders, and were first off the line the following morning.
The second day of the rally which ran to Lake Placid NY; (home to the 1932 & 1980 Winter Olympics, as well as GAMRR 2019) included bad weather and a severe snowstorm. In Lake Placid, the cars were parked outdoors overnight. The temperature dropped to minus 22 ° C, and the start of the third day morning made numerous difficulties for everyone except for the Saab cars. They immediately started all three, while some 20 of the other cars had to be towed.
In 30 centimeters (6 inches) of snow and ice, the contestants had to, among other things, cross two more mountain passes; one with such a steep climb, that Mellde said he had not previously run anything like this in his Saab; for this pass they actually did need the chains. He estimated the upward slope at 15-20 percent.
The day’s stage offered high speeds after descending the mountains; for four hours, the drivers had to average over 95 km/h. (58 mph)
The final test was just that, a short test of driving skills including driving backwards in a circle and parking in a “garage” without knocking over a bar at the rear. Only the Top Ten cars participated, but Wehman pulled it off with minimal error and the #51 team were declared the winners. Sixth place went to Mellde and Mishkin, while the Jankowitz’s managed 17th due to a broken odometer early on in the rally. SAAB was also awarded the Factory Team prize, 1st in Touring Class under 1500cc, and 1st, 3rd and 4th in the under 750cc category.
Bob Wehman and Louis Braun won the top award overall in their SAAB and as a team the three SAAB entries won the touring and factory team prizes regardless of engine size. In addition, SAAB’s were first in the touring class under 1500 cc’s, first, third and fourth in the 750 cc class, and also took sixth position overall.
The first major shipment of SAAB 93s arrived in the U. S. just weeks later for distribution to the new SAAB dealer network.
If you own a vintage SAAB we would love you to attend so that we could re-live some of this fantastic rally history.
Link to the Barron’s Story:https://www.barrons.com/articles/saab-stories-at-the-2021-owners-convention-01627062675
GREAT AMERICAN MOUNTAIN RALLY REVIVAL 