of Sweden
Saab AB (originally Svenska Aeroplan AB, later SAAB and Saab Group) is now a Swedish aerospace and defence company.
1937 Company founded as Svenska Aero AB with head office in Trollhättan to make military aircraft. The new company was supported by Bofors and Ab Ars (a subsidiary of the Electrolux Group).
1947 Started manufacturing automobiles.
1965 The company changed its name to Saab AB.
1968 Merger with commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania-Vabis, known as Saab-Scania.
1974 Installed new machinery to speed up drying newly sprayed cars developed by Infrarod Teknik in association with Svenska AB Philips.[1]
1987 Civilian shipbuilding was phased out; the business was renamed Kockums Marine AB, focused on military vessels. Launched the first submarine in the world with a Stirling-engine power system, the Näcken. With this technology, a submarine can remain submerged for several weeks at a time. The nearly silent machinery also makes the submarines more difficult to detect.
1990 The aviation and motor vehicle production activities were separated: General Motors took-over automobile production as part owner of the newly formed Saab Automobile AB.
1995 The aerospace and vehicle activities were separated again. Scania became a separate company.
1999 Saab acquired defence group Celsius.
2000 Saab and Celsius (including the former Bofors) merged; the aircraft, missile and avionics manufacturing was concentrated at Saab. Bofors’ artillery operations, including intelligent ammunition, were transferred to BAE Systems.
Bofors was split between Saab Dynamics (missiles and light support weapons) and BAE Systems Bofors AB (barrel systems and ammunition), which became part of BAE Systems Inc.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Engineer 1974/03/07