The Saab 9-3 is a near-luxury car. The 9-3 sedan is similar in size to the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and Audi A4. These cars are smaller than mid-size Japanese cars, like the Honda Accord, Lexus ES and Infiniti G35 sedan, but larger than compacts like the Toyota Corolla.

The 9-3 cannot be mistaken for anything but a Saab. The sloping, wedge-like profile, the shape of the windows, the sleek, integrated headlights, and the distinctive grille are all unmistakably Saab.

Unlike Saabs of old, however, the windshield is steeply raked, a result of the redesign that began with the 2003 models. The rear fascia no longer presents the edgy, Saab-signature look. Instead, a smoother, more rounded, monochromatic body panel integrating the bumper houses taillights somewhat reminiscent of earlier Saabs, only now wrapping around to the trailing edge of the rear quarter panel.

The SportCombi is one of the coolest-looking station wagons on the planet, front to back. It looks sleek without the roof rack, purposefully sporty with it. The huge white-lens vertical LED tail lamps don't intrude on the cargo opening and finish off the body shape perfectly.

Convertibles feature a soft top that merges cleanly with the car's lines, retaining all the proper proportions and relationships with windshield, wheel openings and wedge profile. With the top down and tucked away beneath the solid tonneau cover, the rake of the windshield draws the eye over the passenger area to the tonneau behind the rear-seat head restraints, which tapers into the trunk lid. The soft top features a glass rear window with a defogger.

Saab's entry-level 9-3 treads Trollhatten's narrow path, upholding the company heritage of quirky eccentricity while reaching for a broader audience among modern sports sedan buyers. Like every Saab built in the past 60 years, it borrows from and trades on Saab's history of aircraft manufacture. SAAB is an acronym for Svenska Aeroplan AktieBolaget, literally the Swedish Airplane Company, which was founded to produce fighter aircraft for the Second World War. Saab still uses a stylized airplane for its marque logo, and calls its top-trim models Aero to complete the connection.