TROLLHÄTTAN (AFP) For the 55,000 residents of Trollhättan, the thought of life without Saab is unthinkable as most are connected to the company in one way or another.

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In Saab's Swedish hometown of Trollhättan people have grown so used to hearing that the carmaker is in dire straits that they no longer believe reports of its imminent demise.

For the 55,000 residents of this small southwestern town, the thought of life without Saab is unthinkable as most are connected to the company in one way or another.

"It's hard to imagine. People would have to leave Trollhättan to look for work," said Angela Van der Poel, a deacon at the local branch of the Church of Sweden and whose husband used to work in the automaker's IT department.

Saab's US owner General Motors first snapped up a 50-percent stake in the automaker before buying the rest of the company in 2000.

Now, with GM in dire need of cash, Saab has been put up for sale and a buyer is expected to be announced by the end of this month.

Some 3,400 people are employed at Saab's factory in Trollhättan, and another 12,000 work for suppliers or subcontractors that directly rely on the automaker for their income.

Those figures exclude all the local businesses that rely on that money being spent on their goods and services.

Yet Trollhättan residents are an optimistic lot: they say they are confident that Saab will survive, and the town with it.

"I have always been of the opinion that Saab will continue, I do not think that it will disappear at any time in the future," said the mayor of Trollhaettan, Gert-Inge Andersson.

Andersson was first elected 13 years ago. His son used to work at Saab, while his daughter's husband still does.

"Saab is really important for us as a town, but also important for the whole region," he said.

Trollhättan seems an unlikely candidate to rely on the fortunes of one of America's industrial giants, some 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometres) away across the Atlantic.

To the casual observer, the town has little in common with the epicentre of America's rust belt: it boasts green and rolling hills, and the pale blue Goeta Alv river flows through the surrounding forests.

This breathtaking scenery provides the location for about half of all feature length films shot in Sweden, but seems an unlikely setting for big industry.

Yet aerospace firm Volvo Aero, aircraft manufacturer Lear Corporation and Saab Automobile all have factories here.

At Flamengo's flower shop in the centre of town, 22-year-old manager Peter Saffo is himself a former Saab trainee.

"I hated it. It was very hard work," he told AFP.