Saab Hires Subaru Exec as COO in North America

Saab has announced that a Subaru executive will be put in charge of its North American businesses, as the Swedish carmaker says that Timothy Colbeck would be the president and chief operating officer overseeing its largest market.

Colbeck is well suited to the job at hand, having 25 years of US auto industry experience with Subaru in the sales, e-business and finance departments. Most recently, he was senior vice president of sales, and under his direction, Subaru had record sales and market share in the past two years, the Saab statement said.

Given his new position, he will report directly to Matthias Seidl, Saab Automobile AB vice president and head of global sales and aftersales, and the Saab North America board of directors.

“Tim’s impressive accomplishments during his automotive career in rebuilding the Subaru brand are invaluable to the Saab team and represent his ability to further Saab’s vision for success. We are pleased to have Tim join our North American team during such an exciting time for Saab Cars North America and we are confident Tim will help increase our brand image and sales,” said Matthias Seidl, Vice President and Head of Global Sales and Aftersales.

The announcement comes as Saab is embarked on its biggest-ever product offensive with four products being launched – the new Saab 9-5 Sedan, Saab’s first crossover - the 9-4X, the 9-5 SportCombi and the 9-3 Griffin range. In the U.S., Saab sold only 696 vehicles in April and 2,730 for the first four months of this year, according to Autodata Corp. Saab has struggled to keep its head above water ever since Dutch automaker Spyker bought it out of liquidation from General Motors in January 2010.