Happy New Year – Best In Snow
Not Best in Show, Best In Snow.
A good percentage of our cars are leased, meaning a three-year-old XC70 coupled with our CPO (Certified Pre-Owned program – just acknowledeged as best in industry) could be one heck of a good deal. In 2010, TheStreet.com named XC70 as one of the seven best cars in snow:
When we launched XC70, second generation, we did it up in Chiquitome, Quebec, Canada in the dead of Winter. Soren would draft up what kind of press event we would have depending on what the car was intended to do, during real world driving. Here we were going to do a ‘Winter Test’ to demonstrate how tough our Swedish Irons are in extreme conditions.
But prior to the event, we needed to scout locations, hotels, all the pesky little details. Fred, our PR Director back then, was ill and could not make the trip. My wife and I were on vacation in Montreal and Fred asked if we could take his place, “it’s just a short airplane trip north of Montreal.” So we flew in a 19-passenger plane, with only one other passenger. Arriving at the airport, still about 1,000 feet up, my wife said she felt something was wrong. For one thing, the pilot came out of the cockpit, pulled up the carpet then went back up front. Then, we noticed fire trucks on the runway as we were making our third pass at probably 500 feet. “Well, we do not have a landing gear locked light, so we are waiting approval to land,” the pilot said. It was the smoothest landing we ever experienced and the gear was in fact locked.
All went well at the launch event. At one point, all the media had left one testing area we were using to demonstrate ice handling with XC70. We plowed a section of lake so it had “roads on ice”. What a ball to go sideways, knowing all you could hit was snow. About all ice driving did was give us West Coasters an experience of hitting the brakes and just sliding and sliding and sliding. Actually at a moderate speed there was control but even with ABS and a well balanced car, ice is tough to defeat. After the media left, Ree and I, on a dry snow covered parking lot, started a U turn to head out to follow media and I buried my XC70 into a 4′ deep ditch. For all the snow up there, the area looked flat – not! Our cars are good, really good, but not sideways down in a ditch. I had to crawl out my window and get a tow truck to pull us out. Best part…no media saw me do it. Was rather funny though and Ree always likes to poke me on that one.
All that to mean that a used car is just that, a CPO Volvo XC70 is, well, almost like new and one Swede way to tackle Winter.
We hope you, your family and friends have a safe, fun and healthy 2013.
dan
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