Ha, my plethora of Saab Sonetts have similar cogboxes. The transaxle is just a tad forward of the firewall, BUT as R&T once wrote.... The gear selector lever is "VAGUE"... yeah, no kiddin'. It's a curious appendage, attached to a captive rod inside a piece of surplus gas pipe from the men's restroom at the Trollhatten factory Numerous attempts at finding "true neutral" will be registered by countless excursions in the circuitous route to several "FAKE neutrals", all of which will yield strange noises, and NO movement (except rolling backwards, down a driveway). Most other controls are rather boringly standard, EXCEPT the headlights, which are tethered on the end of yet ANOTHER piece of warped pipe, which one must pull "with gusto", in order to raise the headlight pods... THEN various incantations of Tibetan chants, to induce the lights to actually BOTH come on, as the wiring had gotten brittle... Oh, but there IS a standard feature, included WITH the lights that provides that if proceeding into a strong headwind... AND you're exceeding 70mph (with the little V4 sounding like it's about to hemmorage) OR if somehow, you have managed to achieve a forward velocity of some note.. the headlight pods, having been designed with a curved top, leave little "divots" in the front clip that generate low pressure.. thence LIFT, and without warning, the headlight pods will SLAM UP into position, scaring the living s**t out of you. Ahhh, what a glorious car.
