Hey Scotty, I'm interested in buying a classic 60s Saab 96 2-stroke. Wanting something a little quirky, fun to own and easy to work on. I'm curious on what your thoughts are on them and have you worked on one before?
Those Saabs are incredibly simple (and easy and cheap to rebuild ). They have fewer parts than a Roomba.
Get a better coil (or better, yet, electronic ignition). The transmissions are far from bulletproof, and being "4 on the column" the linkage will need fiddling. The bad news, they smoke. The good news, the oil smoke helps prevent rust (hey, built in Sweden). As always, rust and bent metal is what you really have to watch out for - that's what costs a lot to fix.
Saab used to advertise the engine had only like 7 moving parts. A big problem was owners and gas station attendants forgetting to add oil to the gasoline. (As I recall only the "Sport" and "Monte Carlo" models had automatic oil injection.)
I was always partial to the station wagon model...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFV7awM6Hig
Well, they're real funky vehicles that's for sure and the 2-stroke "corn popper" engines are real simple. I've ridden in them but never owned one or worked on one. You might want to ask here for details:
https://www.saabnet.com/tsn/bb/9x/
