Who said I have a flat nose?
Many years ago, around 1983, we were asked by Volvo Cars in Sweden to help homologate a 242 for Group A European Touring Car Championship racing. Last week Claes Rydholm, from VCC, was handed a letter from a Volvo owner in Germany who is building a replica street version – not for racing. What I [...]
SRAM Racing and Volvo
One of the great things about our pretty cars is that they take to hard-use very well. I’ve driven them in sand, mud, rocks, non-roads and snow. I once buried my XC70 about half-way to its door handles in a snow ditch and had to get a tow truck to drag us out – my [...]
Volvo “Little Red” Commercial – Fun on Instagram
In the previous post, we shared Volvo’s new ad, “Little Red,” and some of the behind-the-scenes fun. We introduced you to the stars: a Passion Red S60 T6 R-Design, Kane and “Little Red” herself. We also have some exclusive photos of the S60 R-Design at the commercial shoot: http://on.fb.me/ImPL09. Now, it’s your turn to get [...]
Little Red – Big Bad Wolf
For me, kids are the best part of commercials. Their worlds are imagined and tangible places they visit whenever and wherever they want. I think as we get older, some of us lose that part of ourselves while others (artists and great thinkers) just keep on fighting dragons. Not that I would buy a VW [...]
April 14, 1927 – A Promise Was Made
Hard to believe we are 85 years old…I mean Volvo. Of course my Mom was born in ’27 and that was good, but that was also Volvo’s founding date. The idea of a Volvo was imagined in 1924; and the first car rolled out on April 14, 1927, by our founders while sharing crayfish at the swanky [...]
Irv Gordon out in Texas somewhere
Irv is out driving his Volvo P1800 on U.S. and Canadian roads this spring, pushing towards 3 million miles. Every so often he rattles my cage with an email saying – “I’m in the middle of nowhere and found this really great place to eat.” I know he always gets asked how many miles are [...]
Don’t you just love Spring?
Time to clean our all your winter junk, dirt, Starbucks cups and that ‘something’ rattling under your front seat. I just washed and waxed our S60, next is XC70, but she takes more time since she’s really my trash collector. First off, it’s not both of us that keep piling stuff into our cars and [...]
When advertising men were as tough as the bourbon they drank.
This New York Times article, “Real ‘Mad Men’ Pitched Safety to Sell Volvos,” is a really good piece about an advertising legend: Mr. McCabe. I never met him, but growing up within Volvo I got to see his creative work and it was like opening a Christmas present – always a surprise and always wonderfully [...]
A Brand Video About People
Around 1991 we were looking for a new advertising agency. When this happens, an agency that is presenting their proposal will show us what they think our brand is about, and some hit it dead on. One agency used a video where different people gave the same speech, cut it into segments and then compiled the [...]
I once tried basketball…
and was politely asked to try some other sports, like checkers, finger painting and making balloons into animals. I truly wanted to play, but mom didn’t raise me to play sports. But Volvo plays, and plays well considering what we just scored. Right now it’s a hat trick: sales are doing very well, Polestar power [...]
