Good Book to Add to your Volvo Collection
I’ve got books, lots of books. Books on fossils, rocks/minerals, sailing, fly tying/fishing, house remodeling, cookbooks (way too many), surfing and a rather nice collection of Volvo books. Oh, I even have one written by Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan signed by him to my mother, around 1938. She loved airplanes, and even worked at Lockheed in Burbank, CA during WWII. Still, in our house there is always room for another Volvo book.
Here’s what Mark McCourt, of Hemmings Motor News, wrote in their October issue about Volvo’s new book, “Volvo Prototypes: A History of Volvo Car Corporation 1927-2011″:
HemmingsMotorNews_VolvoPrototypes-email
Posted in luxury, Scandinavian Design, Sweden, Volvo heritage, Volvo History | 4 Comments »
A Viking returns – rebirth of Amazon
“The Swedes are a peculiar race,” according to Christer Olsson from his book “Volvo Gothenburg Sweden.” That book has and always will be, our official guide to what Volvo has done. It outlines Volvo’s historical chronology of our cars, trucks, buses, aero, marine, racing and other musings, and is our first go-to when we’re “stumped by the chumps.” If you can find it, it’s worth the search: ISBN 3-907150-58-9 (English Edition).
The first P130 Amazon series (two-door) had to compete with an aging 544 series, and the more practical 122 four-door. As a practical group of people, it’s surprising that Volvo would favor building another two-door sedan, just before launching their P1800 and still having the 544 series for another 5-6 years. I always wanted a 122, or even better, a 220 wagon. I think one of the best achievements from that series was how the doors closed. Not with a “click,” but with a good, heavy “thump.” Even today at club events, I just love the way that door sounds when it matches up with the door frame latch. My 130 (two-door) was hand painted - think cheap paint brush red - and a beat up interior – just one ratty Swede, but it ran. It would tow about 2,000 pounds and I used it for a side hobby/business I had with bee hives and honey. I always wanted to restore it but just ran out of time. Its new owner restored it and did a masterful job. No idea where it is today.
What follows, via the URL link below, is one person’s remarkable and heart-warming story of how he brought back to life a 1966 Volvo 122S and wove together a new chapter for not only the car, but for two of the car’s owners.
http://sharkeyvolvo122.blogspot.com/
Hemmings Daily is a great publication (then again most of you who have tinkered with Swedish Iron or anything older than your grandmother’s Dodge Dart, know Hemmings). Mark McCourt wrote a wonderful piece about this story, and how a Trans Am Volvo 122 was found and brought back to life.
If you want to see the vintage Volvo 122 up close, attend the Waterford Vintage Race Weekend at the Waterford Hills track in Clarkston, Michigan, on July 27 through July 29, with the Trans Am 2.5 Challenge Race scheduled for Saturday, July 28. For more information, visit WaterfordHills.com.
dan
Posted in Sweden, Volvo heritage, Volvo History | Comments OffU.S. Students Take Third Place at Volvo Adventure Awards in Gothenburg
For the first time ever, U.S. students have placed at the Volvo Adventure Awards in Sweden. Check out the story below, as well as these two local newspaper stories about these remarkable students:
- June 6, 2012, “Pontiac Students Prize-Winning Drug Disposal Program Blossoms” Bloomington Pantagraph: http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/education/pontiac-students-prize-winning-drug-disposal-program-blossoms/article_000c2892-b032-11e1-9d3f-0019bb2963f4.html
- June 11, 2012, “School Spotlight: Reedsburg Student Continues to Draw Accolades for Her Activities,” Wisconsin State Journal: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/school-spotlight-reedsburg-student-continues-to-draw-accolades-for-her/article_b238e28c-b3eb-11e1-a1cd-0019bb2963f4.html
US STUDENTS TAKE THIRD PLACE AT VOLVO ADVENTURE AWARDS IN GOTHENBURG
Students from around the world came together to share their vision of a greener future with UNESCO at the Volvo Adventure Awards in Gothenburg
Students from all over the world united in Gothenburg at the Volvo Adventure Awards to battle it out to be crowned winner of the world-class environmental education programme. After experiencing tough competition across more than 45 countries, just 12 teams remained to fight for the coveted Volvo Adventure Award. Working in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the award gives the young and environmentally aware a voice to gain recognition and support for their life-changing ideas.
The US team, comprised of five students from Pontiac, Ill. and North Freedom, Wis., took third place after an intense two-day competition with their initiative, “The National Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal Program”. The ultimate winners were the team from Paraguay with the Brazilian team taking second place. Other competition included the UK, China, Croatia, Egypt, Fiji, Russia, Tanzania, Turkey and Macedonia.
Throughout 2012, prescription drug disposal has been a hot topic in the USA. P2D2 is a group of teenagers who wanted to make a difference. They organised a drug collection program dedicated to keeping the water systems of their communities safe from damage caused by the improper disposal of medication. The team raised awareness by using local government and media outlets, and provided communities with permanent disposal containers and incinerators. The team has even passed a bill to make its efforts permanent, which is currently running in over 22 states. To date, they have prevented over 600,000 pounds of drugs from contaminating our precious environment.
The legacy of the Volvo Adventure Awards goes far beyond its timeframe – throughout the years, youth groups carry on with their school projects and ignite lasting change. In 2008, Team TGIF from Rhode Island in the USA promoted the recycling of cooking grease to refine in to bio fuel. Since then, more than 120,000 gallons of wasted cooking oil was collected which produced about 100,000 gallons of biodiesel. The students drafted a waste cooking oil recycling law and had it passed in July 2011.
This unique competition brings together children from across social, economic and cultural divides, each of whom has identified ways in which to improve their communities, from inner cities to deserted islands. Apart from taking home the ultimate prize, this event unites young people who will potentially achieve something many politicians can’t – change.
###
Posted in Environment, Sweden, Volvo Adventure Awards | Comments Off
Visit Sweden this Summer with Overseas Delivery by Volvo
On July 13, 2010, Volvo presented a display of our first three-point seat belt to the Smithsonian Museum. About five years earlier, in one of our department meetings, Soren (former VP of Public Affairs), said in his typical straight line humor, “what if we could get a Volvo into the Smithsonian?” We all kind of looked either down at whatever we brought into this meeting or starred out into the parking lot. Two things to know about Soren: he’s a great thinker and us minions have to do the work. Now don’t get me wrong, Soren’s ideas were always fun to work on, but most times we all had full work loads already. He thought up “hey lets take XC’s to Alaska and drive from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay, in mid-Winter, or Baja Mexico in mid-Summer.” In all fairness to Soren he did get his hands dirty during both events.
So when Soren said Smithsonian, we talked about the Safety Concept Car (C30 future design) – it made perfect sense to us, but the Smithsonian wouldn’t bite. Then we talked about the three-point seat belt. “Interesting” they replied. So over the course of three years, their selection committee met and decided we were in. Pictured at left is Roger White, Smithsonian Collections Curator and Tassos Panas, VP Marketing and Product Planning here in Rockleigh, NJ.
Fast forward to a couple days ago. We, in PR, subscribe to services that send us media alerts when something is written about Volvo. It doesn’t catch everything, but it does help us see what media is saying about our brand. One media clip came in from “The Constant Traveler” about our European Delivery program. I clicked on it and found it came via Smithsonian.com. It’s not a piece about all the bells and whistles in our cars or safety stuff, it’s about a program that might be one of our best kept secrets. And it is from the Smithsonian…that’s cool.
It’s a short read, nicely outlining what our program offers buyers/travelers. Sweden is so beautiful this time of year.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/travel/2012/05/take-a-vacation-on-volvo/
Soooo, now that you’re ready to visit one of our retailers, pick up a Swede deal on a Volvo, fly to Sweden, take delivery at our factory, how about this offer: Discover Volvo’s Overseas Delivery Program and Enter to Win the Road Trip of a Lifetime at http://www.carplusvacation.com/. The sweepstakes, open through August 15, offers two lucky people the chance to win a road trip of a lifetime and the opportunity to drive a Volvo through West Sweden and South Sweden (Skåne). The one week trip for two is complete with accommodations, meals, activities, flights provided by SAS Scandinavian Airlines and a Volvo to use during your adventure.
I can taste the pickled herring and shrimp washed down with great brew from Gothenburg. Nice Swede Summer to you all.
dan
Posted in contest, Sweden, Travel, Volvo Overseas Delivery Program | Comments OffWhen we had two Apples at Volvo
During the winter of ’81 I moved back to Rockleigh, NJ, from California. Along with thousands of pounds of junk following us here, was an Apple II Plus. It was one hunk of computing power with 64 k of memory, single 5” floppy drive and no monitor – all for a bargain price of $2100. Little did I know that another employee at Volvo also had one, but his was pumped up to 128k and had a really cool black & white monitor.
Phil Cabot, who’s still here at Volvo and is our Manager of North American Parts, was responsible for pricing back then. Pac-Man was King, and then came along VisiCalc (first spread sheet software – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc). VisiCalc was the turning point for a toy to become a tool. Of course I couldn’t buy that software – it was too expensive – so I bootlegged a copy from a programming class I took in California. Phil actually bought his copy, from Computerland.
Our parts costs are based on many different controllable factors except foreign exchange rates. During our annual budget planning, we wrote in pencil on huge green colored paper, and ended up with lots of eraser marks. Then Phil put our parts sales on his Apple with VisiCalc. He could electronically change the exchange rate and the sales volume in an instant, and perform a competitive analysis. He remembers running two computers at Volvo and one at home. Every few hours he had to go back to our Rockleigh office from his home and change the floppies. According to Phil, “Due to the storage limitations of the Apple II, it took an entire weekend to run a competitive analysis as we needed to extract information from one floppy and combine it on another.”
His Swedish counterparts didn’t understand how a small computer could handle a national sales budget. So he packed up his Apple in a wooden foot locker, shipped it to Sweden and went over to give them a demo.
Phil’s demo was an instant success. He remembers the Swedes commenting something like: “Because we used the Apple in Sweden, as part of the business plan presentation, we received almost instant acceptance.” He remembers the VCC parts folks saying something like, “If the computer says that rising prices of X% will reduce our sales by Y%, then it must be correct.” Of course we controlled the calculations.
The world had changed.
I took VisiCalc and created a sales forecasting program based on historical sales of accessories verses vehicle sales. Unlike Phil, my program was sort of ‘self-correcting,’ meaning I figured out how to make each forecast from the previous months be very close to the target objective for each item, so my forecast verses sales were always sort of perfect, which looked good on paper but was not what I intended. Needless to say I never went to work in our IT group. PC programming wasn’t even close to being my strong point.
When I came to PR in ’94, we used Macs, because our advertising agency used Macs and we had joint projects. One year later Volvo mandated that we all have IBM desktops. We worked out a deal with IT to keep our Macs and promised to start working on our new IBMs within a year. We didn’t start working on those IBMs until day 364.
To help everyone learn how to use IBM PCs, our IT group held training sessions. My wife was one of our first instructors (later to become one of our lead Project Managers). I mentioned to her that Apple never offered any training programs, that it was so easy to use even I could do it, so why does IBM offer training…”So you can learn how to use it,” ugh.
Thanks Steve Jobs for changing our world.
dan
Posted in Sweden, Volvo History | 1 Comment »Scandinavian Architecture
Growing up in the 60′s, Danish furniture was the in style. Teak desks with rounded corners and dressers with no handles – just hand holds carved out from doors or those really nice blended in recessed 1/2 round edges. The drawers worked so smoothly and there were no metal rails. Later in life, I learned that the NK department store group in Sweden, kind of like our Macy’s or Nordstrom’s, invented a dresser drawer design that was wood on wood runners/rails – simple and effective. Scandinavian Form and Function at it’s finest.
A wood working magazine had this to say about NK drawers:
- An easier to fit drawer
- Less wear and tear because the drawer sides don’t touch the carcase (case)
- Thinner drawer sides
- Less sticking, binding, etc related to the drawer sides not touching
I’d like to think what he said is applicable to how we look at cars with our Scandinavian design heritage. How everything works in harmony without adding substance. Swedish language has a word for this kind of attitude: Logum – meaning just enough.
Unless you have an opportunity to visit Sweden, you rarely see architecture that comes from Scandinavia. Here’s a great, free, on-line publication about Scandinavian architecture.
http://www.the-scandinavian.com/small/index.htm
dan
Posted in design, Scandinavian Design, Sweden | Comments OffK-PAX Crew Tests New S60 at Our Wind Tunnel
Let’s see if I can keep this straight, years ago, my cousin, Emily, moved from California to Colorado, gosh…wonder why. She grew up doing all kinds of outdoor stuff – her father/my Uncle Norm loves to fish and hike. I think he can catch Brook Trout in a dry rain barrel with a bare fishing hook. So Emily had a baby boy named Owen. Last time I saw Owen, he was knee high to a grasshopper.
Time flies and a couple of years ago, Owen emailed me to ask if there were any jobs at Volvo. There weren’t, but he did land an engineering job at a wire cable company. Flash forward to a couple weeks ago, and I get an email “I’m in Sweden.” Come to find out Owen is working for K-PAX Racing – way cool. See, we’re all connected to Volvo in some way. With Owen, it’s three degrees of separation. If nothing else, anyone who fastensconnects their seat belt is connected to Volvo.
K-PAX is building their second generation S60 race car and spent a week at our wind tunnel in Sweden. Here are Owen’s emails:
6/19
DJ,
I am loving Sweden! The weather is amazing compared to last time. (Was out here in Stockholm for personal business in January of last year).
We are staying above Central Station in Göteborg. We are working with Tim Walker, and Bill Buchka (who says that he knows you!). There are many others helping out in the company, but I can’t remember all their names.
Hope you are well.
Owen
A shot of some of the trolley tracks, a waterway, and major sunflare in the evening light. 2 blocks from the hotel.
—
6/20
All,
Pretty good first day. Started early with breakfast at the hotel. Vasa crackers with butter and mild cheese– interesting..
We drove through town into the enormous area that Volvo owns. They have their own airport! Once inside, we got the car out of the crate and pushed it about a quarter mile to the tunnel prep area. We spent most of the morning removing all the test parts we had strapped to the car for transport. We ate lunch in the Volvo cafeteria. After lunch, one of the Aerodynamics Technical Specialists (instantly recognizable from YouTube!) went over the car with us and suggested additional test items and avenues for development. He also helped me place bits of string on the car for flow supplementary flow visualization.
Overall the atmosphere was very positive. I felt like a bit of a spectacle at times. There were many people who stopped by. Everyone from all positions in the company wanted to see the car and watch us work.
Today’s shots are:
Coming home from dinner, looking out over one of the main canals.
A beautiful German cathedral. 42 bells in the tower if, I remember correctly.
Off to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.
Owen
—
6/21
All,
Fantastic first day! We were in the tunnel from 6:00 till 14:30. Long day, but the tunnel staff were a huge help and working together, we produced a huge amount of data. My pressure taps seem to be working quite well. I should have a bus-load of data to play with regarding our heat exchanger efficiency and the flow geometry inside the duct work I helped design.
We all had a very special experience at the end of the day. In an effort to resolve some issues at the rear of the car the staff here prepared the smoke wand to better visualize the 3D airflow around the car. Because the smoke test is run at low speed we were allowed inside the plenum behind the safety fence inside the test section in the tunnel. It was amazing. Just to feel the wind tunnel air, smell the glycol, hear the tunnel fan and be part of the test. Unreal!
Owen
—
6/22
All,
Bit of a different day. Lots of meetings with various Volvo folks. We were at the tunnel early this morning to finalize our testing plans for Thursday and fabricate a few additional test parts that came about after our debrief from Tuesday.
We went to Polestar racing after lunch, they are the major Scandinavian tuner for Volvos. Some of you might recognize their name from the British TV show Top Gear. It was a very informative trip. Unfortunately, less of their solutions were directly transferable to our cars than we had been hoped. That aside, they have a really professional operation and facility. I’ve got pages of notes after that trip.
Everyone is excited to make some real gains on the car tomorrow when we get back into the tunnel. That’s all for tonight.
Owen
—
6/23
All,
Sorry for the delayed report, yesterday was a very long day! Fewer hiccups in the tunnel control system meant a fast-paced 8 hour session. We explored a few new concepts and I got a chance to see numbers put to a few of my more eccentric designs. Now, everyone needs to sit back and digest all the info, and we need to compile the data.
Today is the Midsummer’s eve holiday here, so we had to pack up the car for shipping last night. This made the day feel even longer. Plus, when we rolled the car out of the facility to push it back to the crate it was pouring rain! All’s well though.
Owen
==============================
Below are some shots taken by Agenda Magazine, an internal publication, of Owen and the K-PAX crew, along with Bill Buchka, Manager, Launch and Brand Communications, at Volvo in Rockleigh.
Dan
Posted in K-PAX Volvo S60, S60, Sweden | Comments Off
Real world accident research – Real world results
Many of you know this bit of Volvo history but please bear with me on this refresh. Since 1972, Volvo in Sweden has investigated real world accidents that happen within about an hour’s drive of our Torslanda HQ. A team of researchers head to a site, take measurements, interview people and sometimes take the car into our crash center for further analysis. Right now, we have over 40,000 accidents in our real world accidents database.
What we have done and continue to do, is look for ways to help improve occupant protection. These days, it’s more about avoidance than protection. But for our database going forward there is no way to interview someone who didn’t have an accident because City Safety did it’s job. If an XC60 driver doesn’t stop and City Safety takes over, how can we measure that occurrence? We can’t, but the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) can and just did. Below is our press release about how City Safety is saving money and lives. You can read their release at: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr071911.html
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2011-07-18-self-braking-cars_n.htm
Good video news report at http://www.autonews.com/article/20110719/VIDEO/307199926/1439
Good Morning America. Self-Braking Cars Get Green Light http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/braking-cars-green-light-14104791?tab=9482930§ion=1206852&playlist=14103762
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/volvo-crash-prevention-system-receives-high-marks-from-insurance-institute/
City Safety is another stepping stone to reaching Vision 2020 goal: No deaths or serious injuries in a Volvo by year 2020.
dan
—
Insurance Claim Analysis: Volvo City Safety System Prevents Collisions
Highway Loss Data Institute Finds Volvo XC60 Gets Into Fewer Crashes
ROCKLEIGH, N.J. (July 19, 2011) – A newly published analysis from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) indicates that Volvo XC60s get into fewer low-speed crashes than comparable vehicles thanks to Volvo’s City Safety technology, a standard feature on all XC60s.
HLDI examined claim frequency under property damage liability, bodily injury liability and collisions. Their data concluded frequency rates for the XC60 were lower than all other midsize luxury SUVs, specifically:
- Claims under property damage liability coverage were filed 27 percent less often for the XC60 than other midsize luxury SUVs.
- Claim frequencies for injuries for the XC60 were filed about half as often compared to other midsize luxury SUVs.
- Collision claim frequencies for the XC60 were 22 percent lower than all other midsize luxury SUVs.
“This is our first real-world look at an advanced crash avoidance technology, and the findings are encouraging,” said Adrian Lund, president of HLDI and IIHS. “City Safety is helping XC60 drivers avoid the kinds of front-to-rear low speed crashes that frequently happen on congested roads.”
IIHS last year estimated that current crash avoidance features have the potential to prevent or mitigate as many as 1.9 million crashes each year, and current users have stated the systems help them to be safer drivers.
“It is great to see validation from HLDI and IIHS of the safety systems that we at Volvo are continually developing,” said Thomas Broberg, Volvo Car Corp.’s senior safety expert. ”This is another step towards achieving our Vision 2020 of eliminating serious injuries and fatalities by the year 2020, and an even larger step towards a crash-free future.”
HLDI also looked at how the crash reductions for the XC60 affected overall insurance costs:
- Overall payouts under property damage liability for XC60s were 20 percent lower than losses for all other midsize luxury SUVs.
- Estimated overall collision losses for the XC60 were 31 percent lower than all other midsize luxury SUVs.
“The lower claim frequencies found by HLDI prove that City Safety is preventing crashes and thus reducing insurance costs,” said John Maloney, VCNA’s vice president of marketing and product planning. ”There’s an opportunity here for insurance companies to begin offering a discount on vehicles equipped with City Safety or similar crash-avoidance technologies.”
HLDI analysts compared insurance claims data for the 2010 model XC60 with two control groups: other 2009-10 midsize luxury SUVs and other 2009-10 Volvo models. The analysis controlled for a variety of geographic and demographic factors that can affect claims. Geographic factors include garaging state and vehicle density (the number of registered vehicles per square mile). Demographic factors take into account such things as the primary driver’s age, gender and marital status. Other factors include calendar year plus the policy deductible.
HLDI defines the three types of auto insurance coverage as follows: property damage liability pays for damage an at-fault vehicle does to another’s property as the result of a crash. Bodily injury liability generally pays for injuries to people involved in the crash other than the insured at-fault driver. Collision pays for damage to the insured vehicle.
City Safety keeps a watch on vehicles in front with the help of a laser sensor built into the windscreen at the height of the rearview mirror. Between 2-19 mph, the car automatically brakes if the driver does not respond in time when the car in front slows down or stops – or if the driver is driving too fast towards a stationary object. If the relative speed difference between the two vehicles is less than 9 mph, the collision can be entirely avoided. If the speed difference is between 9-19 mph, the speed at impact is reduced by about one half, thereby mitigating the collision. City Safety also is also standard on the 2011 and 2012 S60, 2012 S80 and 2012 XC70.
In addition to City Safety, the XC60 is available with Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake as part of its optional Technology Package. Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake uses forward-looking radar and digital camera identification that scans an object and matches its shape against an image database of about 10,000 forms. The system can track up to 64 pedestrians and their paths – all within 50 milliseconds.
If a pedestrian walks into the car’s path and an impact is imminent, a warning light and tone warn the driver. If the driver does not react, the car will apply up to 100 percent available braking force, thereby avoiding a collision if the car is traveling 19 mph or less. At 20 mph and higher, the available breaking force will significantly mitigate the collision.
In the effort to continually be the industry leader in safety, Volvo is working on plans for the next generation of active safety detection which features animal detection. The system, much like today’s pedestrian detection, will feature a radar sensor and infrared camera – and it will function in the dark when the likelihood of hitting an animal increases. The system must be complex in order to recognize a variety of animals in differing sizes – from dogs to moose. According to IIHS, from 1993-2007, 2,499 people died in collisions involving wild animals and the number of collisions continues to increase.
Additional Information
IIHS: http://www.iihs.org/
XC60 City Safety: https://www.media.volvocars.com/us/enhanced/en-us/Media/Preview.aspx?mediaid=18521
XC60 Safety Systems: https://www.media.volvocars.com/us/enhanced/en-us/Media/Preview.aspx?mediaid=18524
Vision 2020: https://www.media.volvocars.com/us/enhanced/en-us/Media/Preview.aspx?mediaid=30670
###
About Volvo
Volvo Cars of North America, LLC, (www.volvocars.com/us) is a subsidiary of Volvo Car Corporation of Gothenburg, Sweden. VCNA provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to Volvo automobile retailers in the United States, and oversees Volvo operations in Canada. For more information please refer to the VCNA media website at: http://www.volvocars-pr.com, and follow Volvo’s blog at: www.volvoblog.us.
Contact:
Dan Johnston or Laura DiStefano
Volvo Cars of North America
800-977-0888
Posted in City Safety, pedestrian safety, safety, Sweden, XC60 | 5 Comments »Little Bit of Sweden in Kansas
Volvo Club of America’s annual clan gathering was held in Lindsborg, KS this year. There are only a few ways to get there: Constoga wagon (245), Sunday go to church Surry (850 T5R in Yellow), or modern Chariott (S60 R-Design) and a 737. I chose the latter.
Lindsborg is between Witchita and Salina, in the heart of wheat country. Irv Gordon, (2.9 million miles on his Volvo guy) said I had to have Swedish pancakes for breakfast while in town. When I walked into a very small Swedish bakery, about 10 pairs of local eye balls determined I was not from these parts. At the counter, I ordered pancakes and didn’t mention a double espresso skim latte, just coffee. An older guy in overalls said coffee is over there and some cream down below. Cool.
As I was waiting for pancakes, sipping coffee and checking email on my phone, in walks an older couple. The guy barks his order to kitchen staff and then sits down across from me. “You part of that Volvo thing?” Oh boy, here we go – “Yes,” I answer very timidly. “Glad to meet you, my name is John.” We must have talked for a good 45 minutes while we ate. He told me about farming, the difference between summer and winter wheat, how the soil is good here, gets cold in winter, his time in the Navy (some years before my Navy tour) and about Volvo and Sweden. Yep, his history started in Sweden with his grandparents. I must say it was a very enjoyable breakfast and start to a fantastic day.
VCOA timed their meet with Lindsborg’s annual Mid-Summer festival. Lots of singing, dancing, folks in traditional Swedish clothing, girls with flowers in their hair, and lots of Volvo’s.
Posted in Sweden, Volvo Club of America (VCOA) | 2 Comments »
Sweepstakes – Win a Dream Trip to Sweden at CarPlusVacation.com
I’ve traveled a little, did a nice tour of SE Asia one time for two years, but that’s another story, been to France, Italy, Portugal (my daughter/husband lived there for a while), UK, and Florida but none compare to Sweden in Summer. There is Absolute(ly) – pun intended - nothing finer than seeing mid-Summer at 3 am with full sun shining, some nice drinks with new friends and smelling the sea breeze. Sure the lagostina, with fresh bread and some herring samplers are hard to beat, but the best are Swedish desserts like apple cake and…well you get the idea. Sweden is Special in Summer. Here’s your chance to see for yourself.
dan
—
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Volvo. Sweden. You.
Discover Volvo’s Overseas Program and Enter to Win a Dream Vacation at www.CarPlusVacation.com
ROCKLEIGH, N.J. (April 7, 2011) – Volvo Cars of North America’s (VCNA) Overseas Delivery Program has become the number one European overseas delivery service by offering car buyers an opportunity to save money and an unforgettable way to pick up their new vehicle – straight from the factory in Sweden. Now, for the third year, VCNA, along with VisitSweden, Tourism in Skåne and the West Swedish Tourist Board are bringing back their www.CarPlusVacation.com sweepstakes and offering a chance for two lucky people to win a dream vacation in West Sweden and Skåne.
From April 1 through July 1, people are encouraged to visit the website and register for the sweepstakes. There, entrants can use the site’s trip planner to create their dream itinerary and explore all that West Sweden and Skåne have to offer. By submitting an itinerary, visitors are automatically entered into the sweepstakes. The lucky winner will receive a one-week trip of a lifetime for two to West Sweden, complete with free airfare provided by SAS Scandinavian Airlines, accommodations, meals, activities, and the use of a Volvo car.
In addition to the sweepstakes, the site will follow several high-profile lifestyle and travel bloggers as they document their adventures traveling through Sweden. Their experiences will live on the CarPlusVacation.com website as well as on their own blogs.
“I can’t wait to bring my readers along with me as I venture into Sweden to learn more about their food, culture and heritage,” said Julia Allison of NonSociety.com.
“Volvo was born in West Sweden, and we are still firmly rooted in the city of Gothenburg, where most of our cars are still manufactured,” said Anders Robertson, manager of VCNA’s Overseas Delivery. “Through the www.CarPlusVacation.com campaign, we give potential customers a chance to experience the place and culture where their car comes from.”
“West Sweden and Skåne are hidden gems among tourist destinations,” said Lotta Thiringer, U.S. Director of VisitSweden. “You can experience outdoor adventure, fine dining at Michelin-starred restaurants, exquisite landscapes, fascinating culture, and top notch shopping in the cities of Gothenburg and Malmo.”
To enter, visit www.CarPlusVacation.com through July 1.
Volvo Overseas Delivery Program – How it Works
Through Volvo’s Overseas Delivery Program, participants guarantee themselves a free trip to Sweden by purchasing a new Volvo car. Volvo provides two complimentary airline tickets to Gothenburg, where the customer picks up their new car directly from the Volvo factory. Then, they can head out on a European road trip, and when they’re ready to return home, they can simply drop off the car and Volvo will ship it to the United States for free.
Take advantage of overseas delivery:
1. Visit the nearest Volvo retailer to test drive and find your perfect Volvo.
2. Order your Volvo through the Overseas Delivery Program at your local retailer.
3. Enjoy two complimentary airline tickets to Gothenburg from SAS Scandinavian Airlines.
4. Pick up your new Volvo at the Gothenburg Factory Delivery Center. Your new car will be registered for your stay in Europe with insurance for 15 days and the protection of the Volvo On Call Service.
5. Test your Volvo out on the roads of West Sweden, either with one of the program’s spectacular themed tours or on your own. Then, all of Europe is your road.
6. Drop off your Volvo in Gothenburg or an official drop-off location. Volvo will ship your car home and take care of all the problems that make importing a car difficult, from excise taxes to import duties.
For additional information about the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program, please visit www.volvocars.us/mybagsarepacked.
###
Posted in contest, Overseas Delivery, Sweden | Comments Off
