Things which fit in the boot of a Saab 9-3 Sports Saloon...

JayGee

1 x Marshall 1936 2x12 cab

1 x Mesa 5:25 Express combo

1 x Medium sized tool box containing leads, spares, & bits & bobs which might come in useful

1 x Pistol case containing wireless rig

1 x Gator Pedal Tote pedal board in gig bag

2 x Guitar stands

1 x Fender Telecaster Cabronita in gig bag

1 x Danelectro DC59 12 string in a gig bag

1 x Folding trolley

That just leaves the PRS Mira in its hard case to go in the back seat, if I dropped the 12 string and put the PRS in a gig bag I could get the whole rig in the boot locked away out of view which I think is actually quite impressive :-)

thisisguitar

I have the same car, surprisingly versatile :-)

JayGee

Yeah, the boot looked pretty good when I bought the car and I was pretty sure it would work but when you're used to loading up a certain way with everything going in a particular place in a particular order the first time you pack a "new" car  for a gig is always a slightly nervous moment (even if you have given yourself plenty of time to work out the 3D Tetris thing). I was both surprised and delighted when everything went in nice and neatly first time and then the boot kept on accepting stuff after the point where my old MG ZT (actually a slightly larger car and the boot looks bigger at a casual first glance) would have run out.

Normally I'd have had all the guitars on the back seat but when everything else was in the boot it looked worth a punt and lo and behold two went in.

Important stuff to the gigging guitar player this... :-)

thisisguitar

It's handy that you can actually put the seat down too, not many saloons do in my experience. I had a 9-5 before, so was pleasantly surprised to fit my gear in fairly easily. 

Did you go for the Aero?

fastboy

My mrs used to have a 9-3 saloon and I used to get a Marshall 4x12, 2 x marshall smallpox heads, pedalboard, bag of leads and a guitar in the boot - amazingly cavernous it was....

David5150

Best car I ever owned (93 Aero)  and yes - a 4X12 slots perfectly in the boot.

Off piste slightly but when I was trading the car in the sales folk at car dealers were a bit taken back when I took said marshall cab to the garage as I had to check it fitted in the boots of various potential purchases

thisisguitar

I preferred the 9-5 Aero I had for comfort and power, but the 9-3 is a better looking car. Thinking of chipping mine at some point, it's surprising how much slower the 9-3 Aero feels (2.0t).

Very sensible taking the cab to a purchase a car in my opinion :-)

JayGee

Clearly the FB default gigwagon then - it's certainly very well adapted to the role in terms of usable cargo space and being a calm, comfortable, relaxing place to be when faced with a long-ish haul home after the post-gig rush has worn off... :-)

Mines a TiD 150 (150BHP oil-of-satan burner) by the way. Clearly I'm getting old as 55 MPG has more appeal than 210 BHP...

I actually drove an Aero the last time I bought a brand new car (some 10 years ago now) and it was pretty damned quick - rather more so than the raw figures would lead you to expect but the Audi A4 quattro I ended up getting was even better, largely as (predictably enough given the AWD) it was much better at getting big fat wodges of turbocharged torque to engage constructively with crumbling tarmac when exiting bends rapidly in icky conditions in particularly rural areas of the Essex/Suffolk hinterlands... :-) The TiD runs both of them surprisingly close in terms of main road overtaking ability though!

fastboy

The Saab was great but the best non estate car I had for gear lugging was an E60 BMW 535D. We obviously had to use the back seats as well but we managed to fit my rig, drum rig and PA which broadly consisted of:

Me + drummer (obviously)

My rig at the time

2x12 cab

1 standard size Marshall head

1 smallbox head 

Pedalboard

Bag of leads

2 guitars in flightcases

Drummer's rig

5 piece kit including his magic carpet (all drummers have them)

The obligatory coffin bag of stands

cymbal bag 

Sundry bag for sticks / fan etc

6 cans of beer (yes, he was a proper alcoholic so if the drive was any further than an hour they'd be gone! Only guy I've ever known who could get totally wasted and would never miss a beat!)

PA

2 X Powered Yamaha 12's

16 channel mixer

Bag of leads plus a few rack mounts in the bag

speaker stands

It was obviously full to the brim but we got packing this lot down to a fine art between the two of us we did it so many times. 

Even with all this lot in the car was still seriously rapid as they knock out 280 odd bhp and had over 400 lb/ft torque

Phil_aka_Pip

Austin Princess was pretty impressive. 3-piece band, instruments, backline inside or in boot, PA columns on the roof.

NervousJohn

I miss my Saabs. I had a 9000 and then a 1st gen 9-3. Lovely big comfy fast things.

mike257

Pfft. Back in my youth me and a bandmate had a pair of scruffy old Fiat Puntos. We used to load them up with a fully hardcased four piece drum kit (and stands coffin), Trace Elliot 4x10 combo and 1x15 cab, Orange 4x12, Marshall 4x12, two full size heads, three pedalboards, four guitars, two basses, six way guitar stand, massive keyboard, flight-cased sampler and all the other miscellaneous bits of shite, and still got the four of us in too. Tetris champs!