Gunnar A. Sjögren

Gunnar A. Sjögren ("GAS", 1920-1996) was a Swedish engineer who worked for Saab Automobile and the author of "The SAAB Way - the first 35 years of Saab cars, 1949-1984".

Biography

Born in Stockholm in 1920, he spent his youth in the northern Swedish city of Umeå. During this period he developed a passion for drawing cars, trains aeroplanes and boats. It was soon to become focused on cars, and remained such throughout his life.

After leaving high school, he spent a year in an engineering workshop manufacturing trolleybuses, whereafter he went to engineering college in Örebro in order to realise his dream of fully understanding cars and entering into the auto industry. The most notable event during his education was an essay written at high school entitled "About cars and car makes" that would have gained the maximum mark had it not been for his error of spelling "Orient" with a small "o".

On December 1, 1941, he was taken on at General Motors in Stockholm as a draughtsman, after having submitted his drawings along with an employment application. He was later transferred to the advertising department where he produced illustrations for the variety of GM products marketed in Sweden.

In his spare time, he started submitting drawings to auto magazines and soon became a regular contributor to "Motor" in Sweden. He also was appointed editor of "GM-Revyn", the company's customer magazine, thanks to his talent for both writing and illustrating. It was at this time, the fall of 1946 that he bought his first car, a Chevrolet Fleetmaster Sport Sedan (model 2103), model year 1946. Color: grey.

After 13 years he left GM and became a freelancer with commissions from advertising agencies and magazines. After five years of the irregular hours of a self employed person, he decided to return to industry. He had his eyes set on one particular firm: Saab. As luck would have it Saab advertised for an illustrator and Gunnar Sjögren moved down to Saab's headquarters in Linköping in the fall of 1959.

Association with Saab

He has remained loyal to Saab ever since, moving to wherever the passenger car business had its headquarters: first to Södertälje and finally to its present location in Nyköping, just 60 miles south of Stockholm.

At Saab, Sjögren became deeply involved both in the shaping of the advertising material used to sell the cars as well as in the design and color scheme advisory groups.

Over the years Sjögren assembled a wealth of material about the Saab car, its design philosophy and the marketing strategies followed in bringing the cars to the eyes of the car buying public. In doing so he became owner of a vast fund of knowledge of the cars for which he became a key figure behind the scenes.

His knowledge about cars is legendary and, without hesitation he can correctly sketch with unfailing accuracy most of the important cars of the last 40 or 50 years - particularly if they happen to be made by Saab or General Motors.

Other interests

But despite this abiding and seemingly all-consuming interest in cars, Gunnar Sjögren has developed a profound and expert interest in many other fields. He is a nature lover of note, who has made it a habit to learn the Latin names of plants and flora and fauna that come his way - all of which he can depict in characteristic line drawings with great accuracy. He paints nature scenes and even dares to do so in oils. Since 1975 he is also a true philatelist who mounts his collection artistically and with informative explanations on sheets of his own design. Other indoor interests that serve as a background to his major pursuit are classical music, with a strong penchant towards the Vienna school, smoking a pipe or a cigar and enjoying a glass of good wine or Scotch whisky. His dislikes include sports, entertainment programmes on TV and popular music. At 60, Sjögren decided to retire from Saab, but he still devotes some of his time to Saab matters - such as creating the book "The Saab Way" - so even though he now can devote all the time he wants to his other hobbies, he still seems to have gasoline in his blood.

References

*Source: " [http://saab-club.com/the-saab-way/story/story.htm The Saab Way] , pages 100, 101."

"GAS comment (page 2);"
"The reason that only a few of the drawings have been signed is that it would be distracting to see the same squiggle under every illustration. The fact that all the drawings and illustrations are suitable for reproduction can be regarded as a service to those persons, organizations or auto-historians who might be interested in doing so. This can be done without any restrictions on the part of the author-illustrator, other than the material is used in such a way or to such purpose that it is clearly not contradictory to Saab's interests."