When Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi won the Oscar for best foreign language film on Sunday night, he mentioned the titular car, a candy apple red Saab 900, in his acceptance speech. “Which was really exciting,” Sanford Bogage, the president of the Saab Club of North America, told me.
The movie, adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami, tells of the unlikely bond that develops between middle-aged theater director Yūsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and a young woman named Misaki (Tōko Miura) who is assigned to chauffeur him around in his beloved old Saab. Much of the movie’s poignant and meditative scenes take place on winding roads and within its two doors. (Also, it just looks sick as hell.)
Though the Swedish brand went out of business in 2011, there exists a healthy community of Saab enthusiasts who collect vintage models and meet up at conventions and, in the case of Drive My Car, nerd out over onscreen depictions. Bogage, who works as a teacher in Massachusetts in addition to his Saab Club presidential duties, has been an enthusiast since he was a child. There was a particular Saab he always loved in his hometown and, when the owner became too old to drive, she gave it to him. He’s owned Saabs ever since and currently has four of them. Basically: the perfect person to talk about all things Saab-related in the ultimate Saab movie.
GQ: Is Drive My Car the kind of movie that would have appealed to you were it not for the car?
Sanford Bogage: I love this type of movie. And when I saw the poster, I got so excited because it's such an iconic car. The hood has those little vents on the side. In the promo for the movie, they're leaning against the car and it just shows the hood of the car only, and that color, which is called Talladega Red. I recognized, of course, immediately that it was a Saab. There was absolutely no question in my mind that I was going to see the movie as soon as I could.
Has there been a lot of discussion in the Saab Club about the movie?
Yes, there's been a lot of talk. We're really excited about it. We have a quarterly magazine that we print and it does have an article about the movie. We're talking about trying to get either permission or to show pieces of the movie at our convention, because we'll have some cars like that.
Just last weekend, I was at a small Saab get-together in Virginia and I met an owner who has a car almost identical to that car. I could get into the minutia—Saab fans from all over have already dug very deep, studying stills of the movie and watching the movie and trying to figure out exactly what kind of a car it is and what model, down to the year, and all that kind of stuff. We love to do that kind of thing.
When I was at the movie, there was one gentleman, and I asked him, "Are you here for the car?" And he said he was there because it was by his favorite author, so I had a chance to ask him if the character drove a Saab in the original story. I learned from that gentleman, and I've since read it, that the author did in fact have the character driving a Saab, which I found very unique. In the original story, it was a convertible.
Yeah, a yellow convertible.
But I think that this car really works well because of the fact that they did so many scenes in the car. And as a person who does pay attention to detail as a lot of Saab owners and drivers do, we could tell that it was the real car in that movie—except for, hopefully, the accident.
I read that the director actually spent time in the trunk of the car during those scenes, when they were driving and filming a number of scenes where they're in the backseat, having some really important conversations. It doesn't surprise me at all because it's such a versatile car. I actually own two Saab 900s.
Oh, nice.
We call that the classic 900. That's the nickname for that particular model because they made another version of the 900. I personally think that it is one of the best all-around cars that's ever been made in terms of handling performance, fun to drive, economy, fuel economy, cargo space. It's just truly an all-around amazing car. It doesn't surprise me that an author who pays attention to detail would use that car for a character.
The intimacy of a conversation that might only happen while driving or riding in a car was something that was not lost on the author or director, and I think the design and roominess of the classic 900 allowed them to portray those emotions while actually driving a real car—and not many two-door cars would have the space to allow that to be captured.
I know the director when he was doing his acceptance speech did actually give a shout out to the car and the driver which was really exciting.
I was going to ask if you caught that.
In the movie itself, they never specifically mentioned it as a Saab, that I can recall. They certainly have a lot of still shots and shots of the back. It was very clear that to that character, the car was a lot more than just a vehicle to get you from one point to another. The car was his sort of escape, if you will, his sort of solace, his little peaceful place that he could go to go riding and to clear his mind. Those of us that drive Saabs, of course, we still need to get from A to B with our cars, but our cars mean a lot more to us than just merely transportation.
Yūsuke was pretty reluctant to let her have the keys at first. Do you let anyone else drive your car?
I do, especially other members of our club, but I am usually very nervous when I do. And there's a lot of things that you have to go over. On those older Saabs, the keys are down in the middle, which is a famous thing for Saabs. That classic 900 was the first Saab model to have that key in the center in between the two seats.
What do you think the movie captured especially well about the main character's emotional relationship with this car?
I think what the movie captured is that the car is more than just the strict transportation. Not only did he use that car and wanted the longer commute in order to listen and study his lines, but also it was a moment to spend with his wife. And after she passed, he reflected and just took in her voice. The car was really a temple or a getaway, if you will. And that's something that Saab drivers can really relate to.
I think things like this movie have really sparked our membership. We started our signups for our convention in January. We typically don't open our registration until April 1st. We opened in January, and we're almost sold out in certain areas.
I’ve definitely been wondering this—have you seen the movie explicitly pique anyone's interest in buying this car?
There have been a few on Bring a Trailer that have sold for over $50,000. There was one, just in the last few months, that was red. It looks almost like a replica of the one in the movie. And it sold for $55,000. And there are a number of Saab 900s—there has been a huge uptick. You can actually go on Bring a Trailer and there's a chart that shows the prices, and you see that steep rise.
We’re friendly with a lot of dealers who are still working on selling Saabs. People have these SPGs [Special Performance Group models], and they might be parked in a barn or under a tree. It’s so typical for so owners to not want to let go of their car, even if it's not running. They say, "Oh, it's just way too nice to get rid of. And I want it to go to somebody who can bring it back to its former glory." And I can tell you that I've heard from a number of different mechanics that people are asking them about getting their SPGs running again, because they're noticing these values going up, and they're noticing these cars being portrayed and just the attention being found.
To see Saab over five figures was not something that even five years ago you would see.
Do you have a favorite scene in the movie?
There's that scene where it's in the morning, and he comes out, and she's uncovering the car, because she had covered it the night before. And the sun is kind of shining out on it. And it's just a view of that car from a distance on that side view, and you just see that there's just something so pleasing to the eye.
This interview has been edited and condensed.