The Sunday Mail
Motoring
Not many Zimbabweans appreciate the Volvo brand and not many will understand it enough to appreciate it.
You only have to own one. A lot of Volvo models ranging from the S40, S60, S80, XC 60 and XC90 have flooded our roads, thanks to imports from Singapore, the United Kingdom and Japan.
Volvo is a Swedish carmaker that was taken over by China’s Geely in what was dubbed “the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese car manufacturer”.
Geely bought Volvo from American car giant Ford.
Volvo has for a very long time been very conservative in its vehicle designs and has been in the habit of maintaining a certain design for a particular model.
However, other rival car manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz change their model designs every six years with a mid-life facelift every three years before they finally “totally” change the design of a particular model.
This has seen a lot of would-be customers lose interest in the Volvo brand. To bring issues into perspective, the S80 is Volvo’s flagship sedan while the XC90 is Volvo’s flagship SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle).
While Volvo has had a reputation of building reliable and solid cars, it has, for a very long time, used safety rather than horsepower as its marketing point.
One thing that no one will ever take away from Volvo is that safety is key in the design of their vehicles. On a lighter note, Volvo, three years ago, took a decision to discontinue the production of its “beastly” 4,4-litre petrol V8 which featured in the flagship S80 sedan and XC90.
It was well received by those looking for horsepower fused with luxury and safety but was quickly dismissed as being very heavy on fuel. In Harare, those who own the V8 are a handful elite.
For a long time, since its debut at the Detroit Motor Show in 2002, the XC90 has been one of the most boring SUVs on the global motoring scene while other SUVs like Range Rover, the Discovery series and Mercedes-Benz ML have launched newer facelifts almost four times. The XC90 has “failed” to reinvent itself. This is in my view failure by the Chinese shareholder to invest heavily in Research & Development, a trick that Tata upon its acquisition of Jaguar Cars and Land Rover from Ford has done and done so well to the point that I think the British are regretting ever selling their iconic brand to the Indians.
If you break up with a chic, how do you continue keeping her stuff in your apartment and expect to reinvent yourself and meet better women?
Typical Volvo and Ford relationship! It sucks!
Despite, Ford and Volvo parting ways and Volvo finding a new suitor in Geely, Volvo’s woes were for a long time compounded by Volvo’s over-reliance on Ford for parts and engines, a development which also answers why Volvo parts are still to this day very expensive to replace and why most of them still have to be ordered from Sweden.
It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for the smallest Volvo part either at Frexzim in Harare or any Volvo dealership in South Africa, it still has to be ordered from Sweden.
Finally, after 12 years in the wilderness, clueless and desperate, Volvo will be finally unveiling the new look second generation XC90 for 2015.
It will be totally different from the current SUV in design as it is not a facelift but whole new design presenting a major paradigm shift in the future of design at Volvo Cars.
Currently, the world is guessing what the new XC90 will finally look like, but hint is that it will not be far from the Concept XC Coupe.
The new XC90 apparently began some tests in Europe last month and will be unveiled towards year end for sale in 2015.
To date, no one has got the actual pictures of what exactly it will look like. However, while the new XC90 will hit our streets in 2015, the current longest serving, first generation XC90 model will continue to be built in China and only one engine variant will remain — the usual 2,5 litre turbocharged petrol (2,5T), which is very common on Zimbabwean roads.
The only reason it will remain in production and run parallel to the latest XC90 is that it will provide a cheaper alternative for the XC90 in China.
Now you understand why either the XC60 or XC90 is very popular with the Chinese community in Zimbabwe.
The new XC90 will be based on Volvo’s scalable platform architecture (SPA) technology, which in principle means that most Volvo models will now be built on the same production line irrespective of vehicle size and complexity.
This is the technology that Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries will need to invest in so as to avoid excuses and cut down on vehicle production costs, as currently, WMMI spends no less than US$1 million on jigs each time they have to assemble a new Mazda model.
Volvo is understood to be planning on phasing out the current engines when it unveils the new XC90 and will be replacing them with a single turbocharged 2-litre four-cylinder mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission.
I don’t know about how the market down here will receive it, because a 2-litre engine, even with a turbocharger to give the XC90 that extra oomph, will be a hard sell.
In the Zimbabwean market, where entry into the SUVs market is a 2,8 litre to a 3,0 litre, a 2,0 litre engine will find very few, if any, takers at all.
Gone are the days when Volvo pioneered safety technological advancements and used the “Volvo for Life” pay-off line to stay in business, as all modern cars now use similar safety features.
Apparently, most modern cars now come with ABS, seat belts, Stability and Traction Control, Park Assist and anti-roll features, amongst a host safety features.
Yes, these safety features — some of them pioneered by Volvo — gave it a competitive advantage over other carmakers in Europe where safety on the road is a priority.
But it is no longer the game changer in this beastly $1 trillion industry.
I look forward to the new XC90 in 2015 and under the leadership of Senior vice-president of Design at Volvo Cars Thomas Ingenlath, a German designer, who built his reputation at the Volkswagen Group where he was chief exterior designer for passenger cars before joining Volvo Cars in 2012, his concept cars are somewhat refreshing and bring a sigh of relief and hope for the brand.
