I know it sounds pretentious but I have this weird feeling that if TG would have made that Saab bit 2 years ago they'd still be around now, making niche cars for people who care for what they have to offer. All they needed was some proper marketing other than "it's a plane lol", showcasing what they ACTUALLY were; a really well built car for people who liked things a bit differently.
That segment really made me feel sad.
You are conveniently forgetting their many ongoing bonehead design decisions, which is what most of the buying public remembered. TG didn't - they did cover it. Example: "We're going to custom-design a pointlessly unique navigation system because we don't like the one our corporate parent uses!" I'm told it doesn't even work very well; they would have been better off ringing Pioneer or Alpine (who make what I'd say is the majority of the best OEM nav systems) and asking them for one.
As for the marketing campaigns, they did actually try something that wasn't just "LOL jets" in the US (which is where the majority of Saabs were sold for many, many years, IIRC):
[video=youtube;-5uIQQT7-nA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5uIQQT7-nA[/video]
(There was another one that had the AeroX in a brief cameo shot, but I can't find it.)
It didn't help in the long run; the product just wasn't up to the promises.
They also did stupid things like promote something like this:
[video=youtube;xJd-pZSO_sA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJd-pZSO_sA[/video]
And then decided not to make it.
Also, let's not forget: backwards Triumph engines, cars held together by uncommon fasteners (hope you have a Torx driver AND socket set if you want to own one) and
spotty-at-best reliability. Buyers sure didn't.
If you want quirky cars, that's what Subaru does as well - and Subarus are far more reliable. In fact, around here I've observed many former Saab owners jumping ship to Subaru.
What might, possibly, conceivably have saved them would have been building the AeroX to draw people back into the showrooms. But they didn't. They decided they didn't need something to draw people into the showroom and they got what they deserved for their timidity.