Volvo’s "How Naughty Do You Want It" campaign is kicking into high gear and the Swedish manufacturer is giving the people a chance to come up with ideas on the lengths Volvo will take to prove it’s "naughtiness".
As a brief teaser of what’s in line for the campaign, Volvo announced in this video that they will be doing something very "un-Volvo-like" in the coming weeks, which means that we’re probably going to see these guys finally come out of the their boxy shells and become a little more risque.
How risque do we think? Well, if they can put some walk behind the talk they’ve been dishing out, then we probably should expect something along the lines of using a Volvo S60 and doing something straight out of the Fast and the Furious.
Yep, ’Volvo’ and ’Fast and the Furious’ in the same sentence. Who would have thought, huh? Seems Volvo is trying to shed the "old people" clothing and try on some fresh, young threads.
Volvo will enter the Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) with a C30 driven by Robert Dahlgren. He says the C30 STCC is the fastest Volvo he has ever driven.
The car is based on the facelift version of the C30, but with improved rear suspension, engine, and aerodynamics. "We’ve gone over every single aspect of the new car - front and rear suspension, engine and aerodynamics. We want to be absolutely sure of all the improvements, and also to confirm the reliability of all the new and revised components," says Christian Dahl, Team Manager for the Volvo Polestar team.
Volvo and Polestar have had success on the racetrack before. In 2009, they had the fastest times in all of the qualifying sessions and succeeded in winning half of the heats. This year, they have extended their testing program to secure victories for the 2010 STCC and have already clocked in 3000 kilometers of track testing.
Follow the jump for a video of the Volvo C30 STCC and the press release.
When you think about high-performance race cars, the name ‘Volvo’ doesn’t usually pop up in discussions. As one of the world’s most conservative car brands, Volvo doesn’t really elicit thoughts of race cars the same way Ferrari or Porsche does.
Yet despite not being considered a popular racing brand, Volvo is far from being a pushover when it comes to car racing. As a matter of fact, the brand’s Swedish Touring Car Team is a defending champ in its racing league.
That being said, Volvo and its racing partner ‘Polestar Performance’ have developed a new racing prototype that’s based on the Volvo C30 with a goal of building a car that boasts just about everything a true-blooded race car driver wants on their car including performance, reliability, and speed.
The prototype C30 comes with a 400-horsepower engine, an all-wheel drive system, and aerodynamic features that were taken from race car data that came from Polestar themselves.
Robert Dahlgren, Polestar’s race and development driver, was geeked up by the thought of seeing a C30 get the full racing treatment. “We love the Volvo C30 - it’s a great car with huge potential for development with its low weight and low centre of gravity,” he said. “It’s also a fantastic road car. But now we go much further by combining the road car with cutting edge racing technology."
For those of you that are intrigued by how this Volvo C30 racing prototype comes out, you won’t have to wait long because the car is scheduled to be unveiled at the Gothenburg Motor Show in a few weeks time (April 22).
After months of watching the back and forth bout between Ford and Geely, Ford has announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Company Limited. The agreement was reached at $1.8 billion (US) and will be paid with a note of $200 million (U.S.) and the remainder in cash. The purchase price includes Volvo cars and related assets (primarily intellectual property). Ford has said they will continue to operate Volvo cars in certain areas in order to ensure a smooth transition after the sale. Ford has also agreed to supply powertrains, stampings, engineering support, information technology, access to tooling for common components, and other selected services and supplies for differing periods of time. The deal is still anticipated to close in the third quarter of 2010.
“The Volvo team has done an exceptional job of restructuring its business and remaining focused on delivering its plan during the sale process,” said Lewis Booth, Ford’s chief financial officer. “With Ford’s continued investment in Volvo, it has launched its best-ever product range and remained true to its core values – safety, quality, environmental responsibility and modern Scandinavian design.
Follow the jump for the full story plus a press release.
Volvo seems to be trimming the fat in regards to their product lineup. A leaked Volvo product update shows the elimination of some models while others receive modifications that Volvo hopes will fill the void. The first model to go was the S80 V8 whose orders have already ceased. The S80 V6 will be supercharged to 300hp and 325lb-ft of torque to make up for the disappearing act of the V8.
In addition, Volvo will be dropping the 168hp and 170lb-ft 2.4i engine that was offered in the S40 and V50 and only offering the models in the higher powered T5 engine with a 227hp and 236 lb-ft engine. The models will still maintain the combined fuel economy rating of 24mpg. The T5 will also only be available in FWD with an automatic transmission powertrain.
The biggest change happening at Volvo is the elimination of the V70. The launch of the 2011 models will bring an updated model of the XC70 who has outsold the V70 every year since 2000. The XC70 will now include a FWD model eliminating the key reason consumers chose the V70 over the XC70.
Final production for the eliminated models will be on May 14, 2010 with a projected sales rundown at the end of the 3rd quarter.
As we close yet another chapter in car history, we must wonder where the original, reliable wagons of yesteryear have gone. Volvo seemed to have the market cornered in the wagon department and, with a foul societal swoop, has decided to join the ranks of the high-powered SUVs. Is this a decision that will make the Volvo rise in status or break the spirit that once was? You decide.
Follow the jump to see the leaked Volvo product update.
Two years ago, we began hearing rumors about Volvo creating a soft-roader with the inner workings of the Volvo C30 and the styling of the Volvo XC60. After being in the pipeline for so long, those rumors were finally confirmed at the Geneva Motor Show by Volvo’s President for Overseas Corporate Strategy, Lex Kerssemakers. He says, "There will be some further expansion of the XC range in the near future."
Generally speaking, society is becoming more environmentally and economically conscious. The trends that we have seen with cars such as the BMW X1 and the Audi Q3 are that of a market wanting more for less. The photo shown here is a rendering of what the Volvo XC 30 might eventually look like. Starting off as a 3-door and possibly moving to a 5-door, this compact crossover shows us that the days of those big, heavy SUVs - along with their ridiculous gas mileage - just might be a thing of the past.
Noted Volvo tuner Heico Sportiv found an unlikely partner in upgrading a Volvo C70 when it tied up with Thonet, a German-based contemporary furniture designer to create – of all things – special wooden gearshift knobs to be installed on the C70.
By themselves, the gearshift knobs, which are made from either oak, beech, or walnut, look nothing like the standard knobs we’ve come to expect from almost all vehicles, but we guess that’s what makes it all the more alluring.
In fact, according to Thonet, the design of the knobs was done to reflect Volvo’s noted floating center console.
Unlikely as it sounds to have a furniture design company become involved in car tuning, Thonet’s gear shift knobs actually look pretty good when you piece the whole puzzle together. It’s not too loud that it stands out like a sore thumb yet it’s not too bland that nobody will even notice something was different. It was a curious choice for Heico Sportiv to bring Thonet on board but, at the end of the day, it seemed like it was worth it.
Money, Money, Money! Whoever said buying a brand would be easy obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about. Of course, I doubt anyone has ever said that, but that’s what it seems like. Ford and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. have been in talks over Volvo for about an eternity and the crap keeps getting deeper as the boots keep getting taller. Volvo union officials have said that Geely would need about $1.4 billion USD after the purchase price of $2 billion USD to substantiate the purchase of the brand.
The figure would be “an absolute minimum” for financing car development, marketing, production and distribution in the next year, and the money needed could be double that amount, Glenn Magnusson, head of the managers’ union at Gothenburg, Sweden-based Volvo, said in an interview.
Four unions said Feb. 5 that they would accept Geely as the new owner of Volvo as long as the Chinese manufacturer proves it can fund operations.
Volvo promised us ’Naughty Volvos’ and they pretty much delivered on that vow, only they did that none of us expected.
As part of our assuming natures, we initially thought that the whole ’Naughty’ campaign involved a strikingly sportier S60 sedan breaking cover at the Geneva Motor Show. It turns out that the S60 didn’t even make an appearance at the auto salon and the whole ’Naughty’ campaign is actually a video series Volvo produced to showcase the S60`s renewed capabilities in a three-part, three-level slalom test that pits the S60 against some pretty stiff obstacles that gets ’naughtier’ as the levels increase and become a little harder than the last.
And to make it for interactive, Volvo is letting the people decide just how ’naughty’ Level 4 should be. All you need to do is go to Volvo’s Facebook page to share your two cents on what kind of obstacle the S60 should drive in.
All these years, Volvo has never been one to think outside the box when it comes to car design because let’s face it, their cars haven’t exactly been the eye-popping type.
But recently, the Swedish brand has been surprising a lot of auto scribes for being just that – thinking outside the box. And just so to prove that they don’t have a as boxy a personality as people think, they’re teasing us with a ‘naughty’ version of one of their cars - possibly a sportier S60 sedan - which they’re bringing to the Geneva Motor Show next week.
Rarely do we see automakers subscribe by the adage, ‘perception isn’t always reality’, but it looks as if Volvo may be jumping on the chance to prove to people that they’ve also taken their designs to the streamlined – or in their own words, ‘naughty’ – level.
Volvo cars
