10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT... THE SAAB TWO-STROKES
Svenska Aeroplan AB was formed in 1937 when several engineering concerns were amalgamated into one company intended to provide Sweden with a home-grown aircraft industry for the coming conflict. When the war was over, Saab needed to find a new line to keep its engineers and production lines busy, and they decided that if they could build planes, a car would be comparatively simple and employ many of the same skills.
They took as their inspiration the German DKW, a car which had become popular in Sweden during the 1930s. Saab’s engineers reckoned this was large enough to cope with long distances on the poorly made roads of the time, but small and light enough to motor across the snow and ice of a Swedish winter. It was also front-wheel drive and powered by a two-stroke engine, an ideal power source at the time for lightweight cars with small capacity powerplants as it provided twice as many
