The Porsche from The Bridge is a 1977 911S Coupé, chassis number 9117201496, finished in Jäger Grün. It sold at auction in July 2018 for £141,500 with no reserve, and the entire proceeds went to WaterAid. This is one of the very few screen objects where the exact car, its history and its price are all a matter of public record.

It is also one where the most-repeated detail is wrong.

The colour everyone gets wrong

You will find Saga's Porsche described everywhere as being painted in "414 olive." The auction catalogue — written by the people who had the car in front of them — describes it as Jäger Grün.

Those are not the same thing, and the auction house's description is the one produced by someone physically inspecting the vehicle for sale. If you are matching paint, that is the name to use.

The car itself

From the auction listing:
Model 1977 Porsche 911S Coupé
Engine 2.7-litre
Chassis 9117201496
Colour Jäger Grün
Drive Left-hand drive, manual

The history is unusually complete. It is a US-market car, imported to Sweden from San Francisco in 2009, with three Swedish owners before the production bought it. Filmlance International acquired it in October 2012 and used it throughout the series.

A left-hand-drive American import in Sweden is a small, good detail — the car is slightly out of place in its own country, which is fitting for the character.

The sale

It went under the hammer at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Sale on 13 July 2018, without reserve, and made £141,500 including premium.

The proceeds went to WaterAid. The car was donated jointly by Filmlance International, Nimbus Film, SVT, DR, ZDF and Film i Skåne — the whole production consortium behind the series.

On the record from the sale, the actor who played Saga: "Saga's Porsche is not only a big part of my own acting life but has also become part of Swedish TV history."

Why a Porsche, and why that one

The car is doing real character work, which is worth a paragraph because it explains why people search for it.

Saga is a detective who cannot read a room and does not pretend to. She wears the same thing, eats the same thing, says exactly what she means. A 1977 911 is the automotive version of that — an object with no soft edges, no concessions to comfort, and a reputation for punishing anyone who drives it carelessly. It is also stubbornly old. She is not driving a police car and she is not driving something new; she is driving a machine she evidently maintains herself.

There is a further layer in the specification. The car is left-hand drive and imported from California, which in Sweden makes it slightly foreign — correct in every mechanical sense and still not quite from here. For a character whose defining trait is being unable to fit the social conventions around her, that is either a very good piece of production design or a very good accident.

And it is a green 911, which is an unusual choice. Most screen 911s are silver, black or red. Jäger Grün is a muted, almost drab factory colour that reads as deliberately unglamorous. The car is not there to look cool. It is there to look like hers.

The coat, which is the other question

Almost everyone who searches for the car also searches for the coat, so it is worth answering here: nobody knows.

Saga's green leather coat has no identified brand. No costume designer names it in any published interview we could find. The look is generally attributed to conceptual director Charlotte Sieling working with the actor, and even that we have only second-hand.

Fan sites suggest lookalikes. Those are guesses, and we are not going to dress one up as an identification. If you want the coat, you are shopping for a green leather coat, and the honest advice is to buy on the leather rather than on a claimed match.

What you would actually buy instead

The car is gone. It sold once, to a private buyer, at a charity auction eight years ago. It is not coming back to market on any predictable schedule, and if it does it will not be at £141,500.

If the object is what you want rather than the provenance:

A 1977 911S is a real, findable car. The 2.7-litre 911 of that era is one of the more attainable classic 911s — less sought after than the 2.4 S that precedes it or the 3.0 Carrera that follows, which is precisely why it remains buyable. Left-hand-drive US imports are common in Europe for the same reason Saga's was: they were made in far greater numbers.

Two things to know before you look. The 2.7 engines of this period have a reputation for cylinder-head issues on the magnesium crankcase, so service history matters more than mileage. And rust on a car of this age is not a defect to negotiate over — it is the entire condition assessment. On a 911 the places that matter are the front suspension pan, the battery boxes, the kidney bowls and the base of the windscreen; a car with clean paint and rot in those places costs more to fix than a scruffy car that is solid underneath.

Left-hand drive is worth seeking out if you are in the UK, oddly. It is what Saga's car was, US imports are plentiful, and right-hand-drive cars of this era carry a premium in Britain that has nothing to do with how they drive.

The colour is the cheap part. Jäger Grün is a Porsche factory colour, so a respray to the correct shade is a known quantity rather than a custom mix. A green 911 of the right decade will read correctly to anyone who watched the show, chassis number or not.

Why this one is worth documenting

Most screen cars are identified by someone freezing a frame and matching a badge. This one has a chassis number, a documented ownership chain, a named seller, a dated sale, a hammer price and a charity recipient — all published by an auction house that had the car in its possession.

That is as complete as provenance gets in this field, and it is the reason we are writing about a car that nobody reading this can buy. When the record is this good, recording it accurately is the useful thing — including correcting the colour.

FAQ

What car does Saga Norén drive in The Bridge? A 1977 Porsche 911S Coupé, 2.7-litre, left-hand drive, manual, chassis number 9117201496.

What colour is it? Jäger Grün, according to the auction catalogue produced when the car was sold. The widely quoted "414 olive" does not match the auction house's description.

How much did it sell for? £141,500 including premium, at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Sale on 13 July 2018, sold without reserve.

Who got the money? WaterAid. The car was donated by the production consortium — Filmlance International, Nimbus Film, SVT, DR, ZDF and Film i Skåne.

Was it a real car or a prop? Entirely real, with a full history. A US-market car imported to Sweden from San Francisco in 2009, with three Swedish owners before Filmlance International bought it in October 2012.

Can I buy it? No. It sold once, privately, in 2018 and has not returned to market.

What brand is Saga's green leather coat? Unknown. No costume designer has named it in any published interview we could find, and the lookalikes circulating online are guesses rather than identifications.

Is a 1977 911S affordable? Relatively, for a classic 911 — the 2.7 sits below both the earlier 2.4 S and the later 3.0 Carrera in desirability. Check the cylinder-head history on the 2.7 engine, and treat rust as the whole condition assessment rather than a bargaining point.