Saab AB
Swedish aerospace and defense company
Saab AB (originally , lit. 'The Swedish Aeroplane Corporation', acronym SAAB), with subsidiaries collectively known as the Saab Group (Swedish: Saabgruppen), is a Swedish aerospace and defence company primarily operating from Sweden. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, but its development and manufacturing operations are undertaken in Linköping.
The company was formally founded by AB Bofors in 1937, by reforming the aero engine division of company NOHAB (founded in 1930), located in Trollhättan, into a proper aircraft manufacturer. It would soon merge with aircraft manufacturer ASJA (founded in 1931), located in Linköping, in 1940, which had its own design bureau and is considered the spiritual predecessor to today's Saab AB. This formed the SAAB-concern, with the factory in Trollhättan becoming SAAB/T and the factory in Linköping (previously ASJA) becoming SAAB/L and design headquarters.
From 1947, Saab started producing automobiles, the automobile division being spun off as Saab Automobile in 1990, a joint venture with General Motors. The joint venture ended in 2000 when GM took complete ownership. From 1968 onwards the company was in a merger with commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania-Vabis, known as Saab-Scania. The two were de-merged in 1995 by the new owners, Investor AB.
History
Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (SAAB)
Saab was founded by AB Bofors in 1937 as Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (acronym SAAB; lit. 'The Swedish Aeroplane Corporation'), located in Trollhättan, by reforming the aircraft engine division of engineering company NOHAB (Nohab Flygmotorfabrik AB, lit. 'Nohab Aero engine factory'), which had been acquired by Bofors in 1935. Bofors had in recent years been in development with the Swedish Air Force (SAF) to create aircraft weaponry and ordnance and wanted to create an aircraft manufacturing subortinate which could take a monopoly over the SAF's future aircraft orders, a premise supported by the SAF. At the time, however, there already was a competing company formed with this premise in 1931, by the name of ASJA (AB Svenska Järnvägsverkstädernas Aeroplanavdelning, lit. 'The Swedish Railway workshops Aeroplane department'), located in Linköping, which was a successor to Svenska Aero (SA) under Sven Blomberg, head designer of the Svenska Aero Jaktfalken fighter plane. ASJA had solicit Blomberg from Svenska Aero in 1930 and later purchased the company in 1932 along with their portfolio of designs, quickly making them the leading aeroplane manufacturer in Sweden at the time.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Saab AB” as swedish aerospace and defense company. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as swedish aerospace and defense company. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q219501. VIAF identifies the subject as 134276022. The Library of Congress control number is n85160160. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1930, 1931 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saab AB” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.