Ancient Grease: Cool Saabs Stay Alive in California, Thanks to Bud Clark

Left: Bud Clark poses in his Saab-based one-off 1963 Quantum III Roadster.

A Saab changed Bud Clark’s life in 1961 when, as a senior at a trade school in Springfield, Massachusetts, he started an apprenticeship in a Saab/Volvo/Studebaker dealership. Clark recalls: “I didn’t like the Saabs. They were ugly, they smoked, and the doors opened the wrong way. The boss sensed that, plunked me in a 1959 customer car, and took me for a ride. Scared the hell out of me; I didn’t know a car could do that around corners—I had a 1954 Mercury. After that ride, I eventually became the head Saab technician there, and I bought my first Saab in 1962.” By 1964, Clark had moved on to work in a Chevy dealership, fettling Corvettes and later racing a Yenko Camaro. He worked on Saabs in his spare time. In 1968, he moved to Southern California where he drag-raced Corvettes and, later, Dodges; but he still couldn’t shake his obsession with Saabs.

In 1982, he opened J&B Imports. Today, he works exclusively on Saabs—mostly Sonett coupes—out of a 6500-square-foot shop in Orange, California. Business is booming for service, restoration, and parts, even though Clark has never advertised. We drove to his shop to chat about his secret to longevity.

You gave up racing a Yenko Camaro paid for by a Corvette dealer to instead fix 750-cc, two-stroke Saabs?

Sure. What’s the problem with that?

How many Sonetts are there?

There were only six Sonett Is made. They were two-strokes, and so were the [early] Sonett IIs. There were a total of 258 two-stroke Sonetts made, and I can account for about 200 survivors. Including the V-4, there were 1868 Sonett IIs made, and with the Sonett III, the total number is roughly 10,300. I’d guess there are a couple thousand that could run. The rest are gone due to accidents or whatever.

Can you survive working only on Saabs?

I don’t want to diversify to other cars. I overbook now. It is a problem—I’m overwhelmed.

How long can Saabs last?

I have a 1987 9000 that was driven off the boat onto a trailer but not tied down right, which bent the unibody, and so it was totaled. I bought it at auction for $3625. I cut everything around the floor and built a new chassis. After 110 new body parts, it runs beautifully and now has more than 750,000 miles on it.

What causes a Sonett to die?

Rust. The orange Sonett we’ve had here since 1979—there’s not a spot of rust on it. It’s from Temecula [California]. Beach cars rust. Florida cars rust. East Coast cars rust. You start taking them apart, and they just fold.

How hard is it to get two-stroke parts?

You can get more parts now than you ever used to be able to. I supply head gaskets; I used to supply pistons. We have the heads redone, although I supply the cutter to the machinists. Guy in Virginia makes the crank pins. The roller bearings in the engine are the same as those for a Honda automatic transmission. We get the crankshaft’s ball bearings locally. They’re quite common. Saab designed it that way.

What do you do when you’re not fixing Saabs?

I drive on the Angeles Crest Highway every Sunday. Also the Glendora Mountain Road. The longest straight is maybe 100 feet—what a workout. When I go home, my significant other’s Sonett is in my garage. She bought one brand-new in ’73, but nobody could fix it. So she bought other cars but didn’t like them. Eventually got another ’73 Sonett, and that’s how I met her. She needed someone to work on it.

•Ralph Millet, the first president of Saab Motors in the U.S., was originally a buyer for aircraft parts. In 1946, he was asked by the Saab aircraft company to find machinery that could be used to build a car in the States. Millet later tasked the Quantum company to build IBM computer-whiz Walter Kern’s front-drive roadster design as a concept for the first Saab Quantum sportscars.

•SAAB is an acronym for “Swedish Aircraft Corporation”, or Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget.

•The 1.5-liter V-4 engine Saab bought from Ford of Germany was tuned for 90 hp in the first concept Mustang in 1962.

•Willys-Overland, one of the builders of the World War II Jeep, was considered as a manufacturer of early Saabs for the U.S.

•There were only six Sonett Is made. They were two-strokes; Saab didn’t start using V-4s until 1967.

•The first two-stroke, 750-cc three-cylinder 93 came out in 1956; from 1950 to 1955, the cars were two-cylinder two-strokes called the 92. The “9” designations represented project numbers.

•Factory number 94 is for the first six Sonett Is, created in 1956. Almost all of the two-stroke, three-cylinder 92s were painted green, with transverse-mounted engines. These had no water pumps but were cooled by “thermal cycling” (heat rises). The 95 in 1959 is the wagon body style. The 97s were the Sonett II and III models.

Posted in: Alive,Ancient,California,Clark,Grease,Saabs,Thanks