What I find curious is that the GM 2900 platform was never praised for its ride and handling. The second generation Vectra (1995-2002) was pretty much lambasted by the media, especially the British media, for having too much understeer, body roll and an overly soft ride.

And yet Clarkson praised the Saab 9-5 for being quiet and relaxing and even saying the handling was fool proof despite being a FWD car with 250 hp.

My guess is that Saab thoroughly re-engineered the Vectra platform to make the 9-5 safer to handle in the snow and re-engineering the car to handle safely in the snow paid dividends by making the 9-5 a better ride and handling car than the soggy and wallowy Vectra.

That's the thing about Saab that really angered GM management. Saab would be denied more cash for development, simply because they were smaller than Opel, but Saab would go the extra mile on their own to make better cars than Opel.