When Jay’s high school buddy Fred first introduced him to the unusual sensation of freewheeling in a two-stroke Saab - like riding a bicycle down a hill with your feet off the pedals - Jay was hooked. Forty years later, he woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go in search of his own freewheeler, this 1958 93B.

Saab, an acronym which stands for Svenska Aeroplanaktiebolaget, opened its doors in 1937 in Linköpig, Sweden to manufacture aircraft, which it’s still doing today. Nine years later, they turned out their first prototype automobile in Trollhättan, the 92001, featuring a two-stroke engine, front wheel drive, and, as you might expect from plane designers, an aerodynamic wing shape profile. But it wasn’t until 1955 that the first Saab was exported out of Sweden, and the majority of them landed in America. The Saab 93 was designed by Sixten Sason, who had been with Saab from the very beginning. Longitudinally mounted under the hood, the 93’s three-cylinder 748 cc engine gets 33 horsepower, enough juice to make it a formidable racing contender in its era. The Saxomat clutch was offered for the first time in 1957, which enabled clutchless gear changing for the car’s ‘three on the tree’ flywheel transmission. This arrangement gave the car better mileage than most contemporary cars on the road today, averaging 35-40 mph. You have to mix your gas with your oil before filling up, and the passenger compartment smells a little like french fries, but it’s a small price to pay.

The 93B was released on September 2, 1957, with minor modifications, most notably, a one-piece windshield. But the guys at Big Dog Garage couldn’t resist improving on the original, when they restored Jay’s 1958. They upped the engine to 850 cc, 57 hp, and put in a four-speed transmission. Jay’s favorite engine feature was left as the original - the generator also functions as the water pump, in a fabulously quirky feat of Swedish engineering.