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It may have spent the last decade churning out rebadged Vauxhalls but, like your decrepit spaniel who spent its final few years limping and smelling odd, let's not remember the bad times.

Instead, let's remember stuff like the 900 Turbo - replete with cheeky upright windscreen and tombstone seats - and its awesome 96 rally car and its 9-3 Viggen. The latter a clear winner in the entirely fictitious Unhinged Hot Hatch-Saloon Thing segment.

Most of all, let's remember Saab - independent, weird little Saab - for its bloody-minded desire to be wilfully different, often, seemingly, for the sheer sake of it: sticking with two-stroke engines when the rest of the world had gone four-stroke, pioneering safety and turbocharging technology, daft lights, freewheeling clutches, even inventing the 4x4 system in the new Fiat Panda...

Click on for more reasons why you'll be missed, Saab.