Tooling Products for Design Phase of the New Saab

The all new SAAB 9-5 is a flagship for Sweden. The outline is clear and simple and the design full of character. Before the car was released SAAB developed a realistic model of the luxury car. Various interior cubing parts were produced using board material RAKU-TOOL® MB-0720 from RAMPF Tooling.

The design phase plays a very important part in the development of a new car. Al-ready at an early stage ideas take shape and are turned into a realistic and touch-able model which serves for checking the visual appearance as well as various functionalities. The new SAAB is anything but ordinary. Its aerodynamic design has been aircraft-inspired. The Advanced Hardware department of the automobile man-ufacturer has produced an interior cubing model of the passenger cabin using RA-KU-TOOL® MB-0720. Even smallest details like radio knobs, air conditioning and navigation have been reproduced.

“To transform a product idea into a detailed reproduction of that idea allows for a comprehensive assessment of visual appearance, feel and accuracy of fit of indi-vidual parts or even an entire cabin. Likewise the cubing process helps to recognize and eliminate potential problems or design faults at an early stage in the design process, to simplify specification work and to improve quality” comments Kent Lars-son on the importance of cubing. The SAAB project leader wanted to clearly imple-ment the iconic style of the automotive brand.

"The excellent dimensional stability of the modeling board MB-0720 from RAMPF helped us with this process," comments Kent Larsson further. The specialists from SAAB bonded the board material with a density and color matched adhesive and then machined it according to the CAD data. The individual parts were then screwed onto an aluminum profile base frame. The modeling board exhibits a good chip formation when machined. It also has ex-cellent shape retention and a low coefficient of thermal expansion which are impor-tant criteria for the production of cubing models. Due to the board’s fine surface structure little finishing is required.


RAMPF Tooling products are used in various industries like automotive, aerospace, foundry, ceramics, wind energy, plastics as well as machine construction. Based in Grafenberg, Germany the materials specialist has set up the world-wide largest production of board materials for styling, modeling and tooling.