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Volvo V70 - The spacious family car – safer, more elegant and with even better driving properties

25 May 2004

• The right car for all occasions
• Increased focus on elegance, comfort and driving properties
• Sweden the largest single market
• Sales target 70,000 cars

From a historical perspective, Volvo Cars is often linked with the image of spacious estate cars for families with young children. At its introduction in 2000, the Volvo V70 took that tradition one step further by combining traditional characteristics such as safety and functionality with a more elegant design, high comfort and improved driving properties. Now comes a further-refined Volvo V70 with emphasis on enhanced comfort and driving properties. "At its launch, we said somewhat jokingly that we had merged a sports-car front with the rear section of a van. I still think that’s a good description of how to achieve unbeatable practical elegance. The Volvo V70 is always the right car for the occasion, whether you are parking alongside the children’s football pitch or outside the opera house on a Saturday evening," says Volvo Cars President Hans-Olov Olsson.

Increased comfort, better driving properties
The exterior design changes reinforce the elegant profile, while the interior changes aim at further enhancing the aura of quality and comfort. The Volvo V70 is now also available with the sophisticated FOUR-C (Continuously Controlled Chassis Concept) active chassis – and the T5 version of the five-cylinder turbocharged engine has been given a vitamin boost to pump out 260 bhp instead of the previous 250 bhp. "A perfect example of the fact that even our most spacious and practical models are designed for drivers with exceptionally high demands on driving properties," continues Hans-Olov Olsson.

Sportier – and safer!
What is more, the safety level of the Volvo V70 is being further enhanced with a number of new features, such as the smart camera-based BLIS (Blind Spot Information System), which monitors the driver’s "blind spots". "The owner of a family car naturally always has immensely high demands concerning safety. The revitalised Volvo V70 has several new solutions that demonstrate our commitment to continue our lead in this area. For example, we know that a switch to switch off the front passenger airbag is high on the priority list of many customers. Now, we introduce a simple and dependable technology to meet this need," explains Hans-Olov Olsson.

Sweden the largest market
The Volvo V70 is Sweden’s best-selling car – and Volvo’s home market is also expected to buy more of the latest incarnation of the Volvo V70 than any other single market. Sweden is followed in the sales charts by the USA, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan. The latest Volvo V70 will reach the showrooms in August 2004 and the total sales target for the first year is more than 70,000 cars.

Diesel engines account for 40 percent of sales in Europe
The proportion of diesel engines in European sales of the Volvo V70 is expected to be in the region of 40 percent. The Volvo V70 is currently built at the Volvo Cars plants in both Torslanda in Sweden and Ghent in Belgium. However, all production will be gradually transferred to Torslanda.

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