Though news came out of Sweden this morning that Saab has narrowed the list of potential suitors down to just two or three buyers, a source close to the automaker says that General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson is concerned that the upcoming Saab 9-5 replacement will overshadow the Opel Insignia.
The 9-5, which is still on schedule to appear later this year at the Frankfurt Motor Show before officially going on sale shortly thereafter, was designed wholly by GM and is based on the automaker’s Epsilon II architecture. According to Sweden’s Expressen, GM engineers and GM CEO Henderson say that the new Saab is even better than the related Opel Insignia, which was recently named European Car of the Year by the European press.
A source at GM told the publication that “Henderson is very scared to have Saab as a competitor in the future” and that he would apparently prefer to see Saab go bankrupt than become a rival for the Insignia. Still, GM needs the money that would come as a result of the Saab sale. Even though GM is attempting to divest itself of Opel, it intends to keep a share in that German division.
