I got some of my facts wrong. Saab didn't introduce their SVC engines until 2000, and they didn't make it into their cars until 2001. I'm not sure when it made it into consumer lines, or which models in the US have the SVC treatment... It is available in the 9-5 Aero, though (in some country somewhere), because I saw that car road tested with it in 2001. It goes from 8:1 to 14:1, and here's an old Edmunds article about it that was written before the engines made it into mainstream production...
http://www.edmunds.com/news/innovati...7/article.html

Here's popular mechanic's write-up which is always much more detailed than anyone elses...
http://popularmechanics.com/automoti...ession_engine/

Here's Saab's version of it:
http://www.saab.co.uk/main/GLOBAL/en/vepsilon/

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. It's engineering like this that makes me glad there are so many manufacturers out there. Competition is a good thing.