Bil - A Car Guy's 25 Year Journey With Saab

Bil Walters spent 25 years with the US subsidiary of Swedish car maker Saab, doing what he had wanted to do since he began working on cars and building his hot rod Chevy Six (how’s that for an oxymoron) as a teenager. This lighthearted book shows how much fun life with Saab was, and what neat things happened to him as he traveled those 25 years.

The book is about those experiences, the products I helped bring to market, folks I worked with, many of whom became good friends, and my bosses…from the truly forgettable to the truly terrific.  For the latter, think Bob Sinclair and Sten Helling.

I learned a lot over the years, much of it the hard way, and so have tried in each chapter to work any “lessons learned” into the story.  However, at the end of the day, I felt privileged that I had played a part in helping to start a systematic approach to product planning, and take satisfaction in the fact that Saab could now spell the function Product Planning.

Further, I hope these stories will give you a feeling of what Sweden and its people were like during the 25 years I travelled there, and why I so loved that country and the folks I met along the way.

And as far as the stories go in this book, they are as accurate as my aging, musty brain will allow.  Please forgive me if I missed something or got a few details wrong here and there. ~Bil Walters