Volvo boss Hakan Samuelsson has said Volvo no longer intends to develop a Volvo to compete in the F-Segment luxury market dominated by the Mercedes S Class.
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In fact, at the Shanghai Motor Show in 2011, Volvo delivered the Concept Universe car which we all though was pointing the way to what could be a Volvo S90; Volvo’s luxury car for Chinese plutocrats.
It sported a rather strange ‘East meets West’ design language with a very odd nose and lots of curves, and it wasn’t exactly showered in plaudits. But that didn’t stop Volvo coming back at Frankfurt in 2011 with an altogether more convincing concept – the Volvo Concept You – that sported a much clearer vision for a future luxury Volvo.
But the Concept You – even with all its daft concept flourishes like door panels made to look like a suit complete with pen in pocket – actually foretold the evolution of Volvo’s design language – which we saw with an almost complete facelift for the entire Volvo range a few months ago – rather than heralding the arrival of an S90.
And now Volvo’s new boss, Hakan Samuelsson, has declared that Volvo actually has no intention of taking on cars like the Mercedes S Class, BMW 7 Series and Jaguar XJ, and aren’t interested in competing in the F-Segment luxury market where V8 engines abound and badge snobbery is everything.
In fact, Samuelsson believes that trying to compete in that market place would actually harm the Volvo brand, rather than enhancing it, and Volvo will instead concentrate on its current plans to downsize engines across the range and aim for growth in the Chinese market with a new platform for a range of compact cars.
It’s a sensible statement from Samuelsson who’s right to think that a foray in to the very high end for Volvo would be a mistake. Much better to concentrate on their core values than try and compete in a sector they can never dominate.
Brian79 says
Sensible and pragmatic.