UKSaabs

Hello Everyone, it is my first time on this forum, so just thought I would say hi to you all. The name's Dr Reid, and I am well known to some of the more illustrious garages on this forum based in Herts, Worcestershire and Essex, who in one way or another! have removed a small fortune or third world debt depending on how you look at it? from my bank account while helping me to create in my own humble opinion, a truly great fun car.

Last weekend at the SOC Nationals at Bath racecourse, I was fortunate enough to have been voted Best Saab 9-3!

Absolutely over the moon with this, so would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted for my chariot, and all of the truly great garages whose dedicated hard work on my car made the win possible; Andy, Mandy, and Giles, you know who you are?

Greatly looking forward to exchanging ideas and thoughts with you Saab wise people here, and hope to push the boundries of my car still further.

All the best for now!

T9 man

Welcome home, T9man. Lots of helpful, and friendly advice and banter here. Love your 9-3, BTW.

Hi Zaphod, thank you kindly for the comment, look forward to getting a few ideas and some guidance from you.

Regards

T9 man

Its about time you got here Sir!

Welcome to the nuthouse Dr R. Be careful, it get very addictive in here and can end up absorbing a lot of your time without you really knowing it.

See you soon,

David.

Hi David, what a small world it is! you seem to pop up everywhere! great to see you and the lads at the show, still smiling over my cars win, totally unexpected, as apparently my face showed only too well when my number plate was read out, lol.

Not sure if you saw me claim my winning blind auction bid placed on an umarked plain cardboard box? quite daring that even by my standards! took it home and discovered 300 Cadburys Caramel's! had to laugh as i'm a Diabetic! took the box in on Monday and gave it to the childrens ward at the Newham General Hospital in East London, and very grateful they were too, got two kisses from the receptionist and a nurse, happy days!!!

I'm sure I will love it here on this site, in such a short space of time I have chatted with some very nice people!
Talk soon David and will probably see you on the 7th when Andy is doing some more work on the Beast for me!

Regards

Os

Surely a more appropriate username would have been 'magpie'

magpie? for why?

Have you noticed how many shiey bits you have collected on you car?

I know! Meguiars's products help me out an awful lot!

300 of em & you gave them away to those pesky kids!
Seriously mate thats a fantastic gesture, well done to you.
I was wondering what was in the box, sweets...Bugger....I knew I should have had a few quid on that auction.

Best 9-3 in show?

Me thinks we need pictures Dr Reid!

oh, and welcome

lol, thank you kindly for the welcome Saabanger! johno's first 3 pictures from the SOC Bath show, show of the Beast! I shall try and upload some other views for you when I get home from the office later!

A few pictures to start with, more to follow!

Going to have too reduce some pictures still further to upload them onto the page successfully!

Hope these are ok Saabanger?

Hello and welcome

very nice looking car - the wheels set it off a treat. Out of curiosity, what are the NACA ducts on the bonnet for?

Thank you kindly for the comment sir! The NACA ducts are there for two reasons, 1) To help keep the engine bay cooler as the rear of the ducts have been removed and filled with a stainless steel wire mesh. 2) As soon as I get around to finishing off the design! I am going to have a low profile ducting system created out of carbon fibre and then coupled up to the NACA ducts to force air into a Cold Induction kit which will be protected inside a heatshield. The ducting system will pass through an in-line force feed fan arrangement to push more air into the air chamber created by the heatshield, should the curvature of the bonnet line deflect away a higher proportion of airflow than I would ideally like to see!

Wow ... the front of a pre-facelift 9-3 and the rear of a post-facelift 9-3. The spirit of the 90 lives!

Am I right: that IS the back of a 2008- 9-3 you have there? I did not realise they were interchangeable. Interesting . . .

Anyway, NICE CAR. Have you done up the inside at all?

Thank you again kind sir for the comments! The rear is indeed from a 2008 9-3. I wanted the Hirsch Air Diffuser fitted to my car, but because this had never been done before, it was a learning curve! a choice between extensive modifications on the 9-3 2003 rear end to make the diffuser fit, or, replace the entire rear end for a 2008 and make that fit, which would then allow the diffuser to fit. No brainer really! the rear park sensors had to be changed and sprayed to body colour, along with having new reflectors fitted. The finish on the Air diffuser was pants to say the least, so ordered it to be sprayed a Matt Silk Black, which I deemed to be a perfect balance between gloss and matt. The particular bodyshop that I use, are very very good but very very slow! cannot rush craftsman! The inside has been extensively altered with Hirsch leather dashboard, aluminium cappings for the doors, glovebox, gearstick, sill trims, alcantera retrimmed A-pillars to accommodate bespoke instrument panel pod for gauges. The car will be retrimmed later on this year in full Bentley Motor Car leather with hand diamond stitched back and seat supports, with replacement door trim covers.