This saga is going on longer than the Wallander TV series. Scania, the Swedish truck company that was part of the same group as Saab from 1969 to 1995, has said it will never allow a Chinese-related company access to the griffin logo used by both Scania and Saab.

This puts the recently announced sale of Saab to the NEVS consortium in even more doubt. NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden), is a consortium of National Modern Energy Holdings of China (the largest shareholder) plus Japanese and Swedish interests. Saab would thus have to find a new logo, and would also need permission even to use the Saab name, as that is owned by the Swedish defence company Saab AB.Speaking to the industry website, just-auto.com, a spokesman for Scania said, “There is a Chinese buyer and in China you see copies of several brands – we don’t want to see trucks with our symbol on… There are a lot of brand pirates in China – I don’t say NEVS has that intention…so to be sure there is no risk we say ‘no thank you.’”

This certainly puts Saab’s former owners’ attempt to sue General Motors (GM) for $3 billion into perspective. Spyker (which bought Saab from GM) claims that GM sabotaged its attempt to sell the company to the Chinese on an earlier occasion, and is demanding huge compensation. Now GM can point out that the other automotive company with a historic stake in Saab wants to avoid Chinese involvement, too.