Kurt Vonnegut’s Saab Dealership
Iconic and charismatic author Kurt Vonnegut, writer of classic novels such as Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, is also rumored to be the former manager of this nation’s first Saab dealership.
An exact time frame as to when Mr. Vonnegut ran this dealership is up for debate, or even whether it was the actual first or second Saab Dealer on United States soil. But it is clear that at one point during 1957 or 1958, Kurt was an employee of Saab Cape Cod on Route 6A in W. Barnstable, Massachusetts. According to the letterhead below, Vonnegut was manager of this establishment, but any facts to back this up have yet to surface.
From what we’ve discovered, it seems Kurt’s Saab dealership wasn’t extremely successful. In an interview with The New York Times before his death, Vonnegut states; “I believe my failure as a dealer so long ago explains what would otherwise remain a deep mystery: why the Swedes have never given me a Nobel Prize for literature.”
Kurt wrote much of the prose to his famous collection of stories in Welcome to the Monkey House while tending his dealership. Until the final days of his life the author seemed bitter towards his time with the Swedish Motor Company, blaming his failure to receive a Nobel Literary Prize on his lackluster salesmanship for Saab in 1960, saying; “The Swedes have long memories and short dicks.” Seriously, who wouldn’t want to buy a Saab 9-5 from Kurt Vonnegut?!
Leave a Reply