Live from the launch: Saab 9-5 on the road

Despite sitting on new seats in front of a different dash atop a modified chassis, the 9-5 does feel remarkably like the Vauxhall Insignia in the first few hundred yards of road, as we said in our first blog on the new Saab.

Saab will shudder at that comparison, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. If nothing else the Insignia must have made a decent template for the manufacturer's engineers to tinker with.

The 9-5's suspension has been retuned and it returns a slightly more comfortable ride than its GM sibling. It's not class-leading (it feels worst on dodgy town road surfaces) but thanks to better refinement it makes long journeys a breeze.