The announcement this afternoon, just two days after the brand celebrated its 60th birthday, follows the failure of talks to sell the company to the Dutch sports car company Spyker.
A previous attempt to sell it to a consortium led by the Koeniggsegg carmaker had also failed.
GM says it will be wound down 'in an orderly manner'.
On Monday, Saab announced it had sold to Chinese carmaker Beijing Automotive (BAIC) all rights to the current 9-5 as well as some technologies from the current 9-3. BAIC plans to start production of its Saab-based own brand of cars as soon as 2011.
A new generation 9-5 unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show will not now be built as a Saab, though it may find its way into another GM brand, possibly Cadillac.
Saab was originally created as a division of the Swedish Aeroplane Company, which had been established in 1937 for the express purpose of building aircraft for the Swedish Air Force. In 1949, as a diversifying from its reliance on aircraft, the Saab 92 was put into production. The 2-cylinder, 2-stroke car later became the 93, its engine with a third cylinder.
A wagon variant, the 95, was added in 1959 and would remain in production for the next 20 years. The decade also saw Saab's first foray into true performance cars with the Saab 94, the first of four Saab Sonetts.
The Saab 99 in 1969 established the brand's styling for the next 20 years and it was also the company's first turbocharged model.
In December 1989, General Motors announced it had bought 50 percent of Saab's automobile division for US $600 million with an option to acquire the remaining shares within a decade. The new generation Saab 900 in 1994 used the same platform as the Opel Vectra and helped the company declare a profit in 1995 for the first time in seven years. In 2000, GM purchased the remaining shares of the automobile division, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary.
In 2005, as part of an attempt to establish the Cadillac brand in Europe, GM produced a 'Caddyised' variant of the 9-3 as the Cadillac BLS. It was unsuccessful in its purpose.
