It was not long
before criticism of the Sonetts lines became increasingly
insistent, both inside and outside Saab. Only two years after the start
of production, Saab approached the Italian styling engineer, Sergio
Coggiola, and asked him to do something about the Sonett. Coggiola was
not given an entirely free hand - the complicated centre section was not
to be touched - and quite a number of changes were made in his proposals
and implemented in Sweden by Saabs own draughtsman and designer, Gunnar
A. Sjögren. The end result of these Swedish-Italian efforts was
unveiled
in the spring of 1970. That year, 740 units of the Saab Sonett III were
produced. Most of them were exported to the United States, while Swedish
customers had to wait until the autumn. In comparison with the Sonett
II, it was not as easy to carry out service and repairs on the Sonett III,
which did not have the tip-up front section of the earlier car. On the
other hand, it had a larger boot which was accissible through the lift-up
rear window. In 1972, the front grille was redesigned and in 1973 the
Sonett III was also fitted with Saabs self-repairing bumpers, which did
nothing to improve its appearance. Headlamp wipers-washers were the only
really new feature on the 1974 Saab Sonett III which was to be the last
of the line. Throughout the V4 period, the Sonett was fitted with a
standard engine. Its higher performance was due to the fact that it
weighed a mere 770 kg. In all, 10219 units of the Saab
Sonett II and III were built.