One ride in a 1959 Saab started a lifelong devotion.
A Saab changed Bud Clark’s life in 1961 when, as a senior at a trade school in Springfield, Massachusetts, he started an apprenticeship in a Saab/Volvo/Studebaker dealership. Clark recalls: “I didn’t like the Saabs. They were ugly, they smoked, and the doors opened the wrong way. The boss sensed that, plunked me in a 1959 customer car, and took me for a ride. Scared the hell out of me; I didn’t know a car could do that around corners—I had a 1954 Mercury. After that ride, I eventually became the head Saab technician there, and I bought my first Saab in 1962.” By 1964, Clark had moved on to work in a Chevy dealership, fettling Corvettes and later racing a Yenko Camaro. He worked on Saabs in his spare time. In 1968, he moved to Southern California where he drag-raced Corvettes and, later, Dodges; but he still couldn’t shake his obsession with Saabs.
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