Plenty voices said that there was only one way to go for the Chinese-owned Volvo, and it definitely wasn't up. Well, you don't need to be a market analyst to realize they were wrong: you just need to have a look at the more recent models launched by the Swedish marque.
A lot of people think that Volvo's logo (a circle with an arrow pointing toward the north-east) is a reference to the male gender symbol (which happens to be identical), but that's actually wrong. While sexism wasn't so ill-regarded at the start of last Century, the brand would be facing some backlash during these modern times.
That's not the case since the simple graphic actually stands for something else: it's the old chemical symbol for iron. Naturally, the hard metal played a pivotal part at the start of the car industry, so linking it with your product wasn't a bad idea at all.
The fact it also stood for manliness didn't hurt either, especially since Volvo also played the card of its Scandinavian origins quite often. What it basically says is that if Vikings were alive today, they would be driving Volvos. And most of their ancestors do just that, as it happens.
After a period of wandering, the brand's design is once again reflecting these strong roots, and the new XC90 SUV and S90 sedan are perfect illustrations of that. And now that we know which way Volvo's design is headed, we can start imagining the rest of the models that are bound to be released over the next years.
The XC60, the smaller SUV, is currently undergoing testing, and its equivalents in the non-jacked-up range can't be too far behind. Here we have a prediction of what the V60 - the wagon version and the one everybody with the tiniest amount of sense should buy - would look like.
The Thor headlights are there, obviously, as is the small but perfectly upright radiator grille sporting the logo we've already talked about. The rest of the car looks like a condensed V90, which is probably perfectly accurate.
This Volvo will go against other premium compact-sized models such as the Audi A4 Avant, the BMW 3 Series Touring or the Mercedes-Benz C-Class T-Modell, and the best part is it actually provides an alternative that's different enough and yet just as good. Now that we've got all worked up over a rendering, let's wait for the actual car to arrive.
That's not the case since the simple graphic actually stands for something else: it's the old chemical symbol for iron. Naturally, the hard metal played a pivotal part at the start of the car industry, so linking it with your product wasn't a bad idea at all.
The fact it also stood for manliness didn't hurt either, especially since Volvo also played the card of its Scandinavian origins quite often. What it basically says is that if Vikings were alive today, they would be driving Volvos. And most of their ancestors do just that, as it happens.
After a period of wandering, the brand's design is once again reflecting these strong roots, and the new XC90 SUV and S90 sedan are perfect illustrations of that. And now that we know which way Volvo's design is headed, we can start imagining the rest of the models that are bound to be released over the next years.
The XC60, the smaller SUV, is currently undergoing testing, and its equivalents in the non-jacked-up range can't be too far behind. Here we have a prediction of what the V60 - the wagon version and the one everybody with the tiniest amount of sense should buy - would look like.
The Thor headlights are there, obviously, as is the small but perfectly upright radiator grille sporting the logo we've already talked about. The rest of the car looks like a condensed V90, which is probably perfectly accurate.
This Volvo will go against other premium compact-sized models such as the Audi A4 Avant, the BMW 3 Series Touring or the Mercedes-Benz C-Class T-Modell, and the best part is it actually provides an alternative that's different enough and yet just as good. Now that we've got all worked up over a rendering, let's wait for the actual car to arrive.