We kept the toy and threw away the box
So here’s this Brit – nice suit, kind of like what one would expect from someone being head of design for a car company – but he talks with an British accent. Ok, what the heck does he know about Swedish car design? I think in those days, the head of any department in Sweden was Swedish, but this guy isn’t. He started talking about how a designer can express what people think is design, but can not translate it into metal. The best person to design a car is someone who understands a design language, ‘”forest from the trees,” how it doesn’t cost any more to make a nice fender than an ugly one, how to trick the eye, and all that mumbo jumbo.
Until Peter came along, we were stuck in box mode. 240’s, 740/760, 850’s…all boxes. Were they good Scandinavian designs? Sure. They held to language that was all about form and function. If you have four tires planted on pavement, what you have above them is yours. You own that real estate, what better way to use it than with a box. Hauls lots of stuff, and if you tweak the fenders, heck it looks ok.
When we launched our first “modern” convertible in 1957, it lasted for 58 cars. At least, we had the guts to pull the plug before we got in real deep. Not many exist today. I found one years ago over in Belgium, didn’t tell my boss that we bought it, shipped it back here and then spent a fortune rebuilding it. But it’s as beautiful as the day it was finished in 1958 and rides just as bad as it did in 1958. Anyway, I’m heading in the wrong direction. Our watershed was 1997 with the launch of the C70 Coupe. The car was stunning, especially in Saffron color. Darn that car was awesome, but how to get media to write about Volvo and use styling in the same article?
So, we brought Peter over to Rockleigh, sectioned off part of our parts warehouse and invited media to meet with Peter and his new toy. We had two journalists in the morning and two in the afternoon. A couple of journalists needed their own photography, so we rented space at an old IBM campus in Wyckoff, NJ where no one could see what we were doing. Oh, I almost forgot, Volvo Car Corporation, Sweden, insisted on bringing over a security guard to ensure no one tampered with or stole the car. This guard was going to sleep in the car trailer with the C70 between photo sessions. She just didn’t understand that here in America, we really don’t expect spy photographers trying to get into this car, so locking it up at night in a secure campus was all the security she needed. Oh, and she carried a nice 9mm side arm – honestly. In the end, she agreed that a hotel room was much nicer than the trailer.
In the end, the media actually called the C70 a ‘Sexy Swede’. Ok, so to capture what Peter presented to the media, and since I felt this was a turning point for Volvo, I rented a monster VHS TV camera and taped his presentation. Sound quality is not the best, but hopefully you will enjoy this bit of Volvo history.
Good week to you all.
Dan
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Dan,
This is great history to keep of Volvo in our life. Something else ruminating in my thoughts–Did you know the new XC60 is a featured vehicle of one of the TV characters on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” show? My mom watches the show and a couple of weeks ago I was watching with her and spotted Terri Hatcher’s character driving a Maple Red XC60. I had not seen any mention of it in other blog circles.
Enjoying our Lime Grass Green XC60 we have had it week–WOW!
Thanks. Was a vhs tape I’ve had for years. Sent it to a friend, who owns a C70 coupe, who works at Hemmings Motor News, and he put it onto DVD. Of course he sent my stuff back plus a spare DVD, but lost in in one of our many moves. I asked Mark if he could redupe it and that’s what we put up.
Yes, Desperate Housewives, actually we’ve had couple of our cars there. Some manufactures pay for placement, we don’t. On DH they use our car, much like other production people do, to place create a persona. Mrs. Doubtfire is a perfect example of how, with no need for talking, they immediately created her image by putting her into an 850.
Might be fun to put some sort of list together about how this works.
BTW AutoWeek has a rather good story about designers drawing on napkins, and Peter Horbury is their interviewee. Next week, just by luck, I’ve put up a couple of retro drawings, one by Peter for how a PV544 might look in today’s world.
NICE color XC60. Have you tested City Safety?
kind regards,
dan
Dan,
Thanks for the AutoWeek story, I had not read it. We went to the LOV in the Desert Arizona Volvo Club show yesterday at the Volvo Arizona Test Facility. They had some nice entries in the show. It was great to see the facility and they had a demo on-going for folks to test City Safety. The facility is great. I see the Ford element merged some of their stuff when they sold off their test facility. I tested City Safety twice at Sanderson before buying the XC. I tested it when we picked up the car, too. And I just hope it is never needed, but good to know it is active.
The DH thing is funny to see the XC for the show it is used on, that show is so far-fetched and comical. The Mrs Doubtfire 850 is a good image builder. I now need to name the new car, I have always named my cars–the last one was Silver Slipper (S40), the prior one was DW (desert wind, S40) and the DL was Desert LOV. I have had other makes with names, too–Red Pony, Runner (truck), CowGirl (Rodeo), Red Box (Trooper), Dynasty (64 Mustang is now with my nephew), REM (Rotary Engine Mazda), there’s a couple more I just thought it interesting what our passion of cars does!
Cheers from Phoenix,
John
hi
Thanks for sharing this fantastic piece of Volvo history! Nice interview! Do you have any others?
This website is a fantastic insight into your work at Volvo and I look forward to reading more from you.
I tried to post in the section about the meet at the Arizona proving ground but comments are closed.
It is a huge shame for Volvo not be preserving the three SEMA C30s including the IPD gull wing car. I appreciate it is just a concept so non-standard and cannot be sold, homologated etc, but could it not be preserved by the Volvo musuem?? They also are saving the IPD XC70 AT Orange car even though it was given the same ‘fate’ as the gull wing C30 ie scrapping. Can’t the gullwing go to the museum? Can IPD not preserve it??
What happened to the Evolve car and the Heico AWD C30? Are they also back with their designers? Preserved by them?
If someone volunteered to preserve one of these concepts as per storage and preservation of a vintage car, could Volvo not let someone do that? Obviously, car cannot be driven on the road.
Volvo is extremely good at preserving concept cars, design studies and examples of production cars. The museum has a superb array of pre-production cars preserved (as examples of production models). They only recently unveiled some motorshow demonstrators such as 780, ealry 740, yellow 850 etc all with approx 100 miles or less on their clocks. All previously hidden away in Volvo’s storage department. Plus ‘new’ prototypes from Volvo BV in Holland’s now closed HQ are now in Sweden.
Does preservation of the SEMA cars not come into the museums remit? The XC70 AT has already moved there it seems.
regards
[...] The expressive 1997-2002 C70 Coupe, like the 1998-2004 C70 Convertible that would follow, was developed in conjunction with England’s touring car and Formula 1 powerhouse TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) on the 850 platform, and as Peter explained, it honored Volvo’s traditional design cues in an entirely new language. [...]
[...] car and is expected to account for almost one third of those sales. He then turned the mic over to Peter Horbury, our new (again) Design Director who went into a few of the product details. It seemed strange to [...]