Loss-making Swedish carmaker Saab will definitely be shut down, General Motors CEO Edward Whitacre said.

"We are closing Saab," Edward Whitacre told reporters at the Detroit auto show, Dow Jones Newswire reported. "We're winding it down."

None of the bidders for the ailing Saab unit had submitted an offer that was "financially better for us than the wind-down", GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said, and would therefor not prompt GM to reverse its decision to shut down the Swedish brand.

"The offers we've received so far in terms of risk and financing up-front just have been as good as winding it down," Bob Lutz told reporters

Several groups, including Dutch sportscar maker Spyker and a group comprised of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and a Luxembourg investment firm, have said they presented GM with last-ditch bids to rescue Saab.

Last Friday GM decided on the liquidation of Saab and appointed restructuring group AlixPartners to supervise the orderly wind down. The American car giant also said it had received several proposals for Saab and is continuing to evaluate these suggestions.

GM took over Saab in 1989. Under GM's stewardship Saab rarely posted a profit and 2008 lost 3.0 billion kronor (241 million euros, 341 million dollars at the time). It's projected to post a similar loss this year. Saab last made a profit in 2001, the only year it was in the black in almost two decades of GM ownership.

“Rather an end filled with terror than terror with no end”, Bob Lutz told the TT news wire.

Up to an estimated 8,000 people in southwest Sweden, including 3,400 Saab employees, consultants and sub-contractors, will be affected by the close-down, according to a study by Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. It could also pose a problem for Sweden's other carmaker Volvo, owned by US-based Ford Motor Co.

These announcements come as Jöran Hägglund, state secretary at the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, are in Detroit to negotiate with GM over Saab’s future.