Close your eyes and picture yourself in the year 2027. What kind of Volvo do you see in your vision of tomorrow? Is it low and sporty or tall and curvy? Is the propulsion system in the front, the rear, under the seats or contained completely within the wheels? For that matter, does it even have wheels? For most of us, this is an exercise in daydreaming. But for the lucky few at the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center (VMCC) in Camarillo, California, it's a job. Combine that with the need to experience the trendy, often casual and perpetually cool LA lifestyle and you might describe it as a dream job.

Before the computer age, Volvo's automotive stylists used basic tools - including paper, paint, wood and clay - to bring their ideas to life. Yet transferring a truly great design from the mind into a three-dimensional object is a skill that takes years to master. For example, when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues, 19th century sculptor Auguste Rodin said, "I choose a block of marble and cut off whatever I don't need." Thus a simple bag of modeling clay contained a Volvo of the future. All the designer had to do was create a wooden buck, apply the clay and then begin the arduous process of slowly removing it to get the proportions just right.