Saab announced that the future 9-3 will not be built on the upper-medium Ypsilon-2 architecture, but on the more compact lower-medium Delta platform.

Also the future 9-1 will also need a more compact architecture as well. "We don't want Saabs to grow in size but rather keep them more compact," Carl-Peter Forster, president of GM Europe and chairman of Saab Automobiles, said.

Saab wants to break the industry trend that successors to existing models automatically get bigger. For that reason, GM Europe wants to redefine the 9-1 concept, which originally was supposed to get the lower-medium architecture.

One option for the 9-1 is the use of GM's global small Gamma architecture, which underpins today's Opel/Vauxhall Corsa. "Using that architecture is imaginable," Forster said.

Also, the future small and medium Saabs will get highly efficient four-cylinder turbo engines.

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