75 safe years from Volvo

It was the best of birthday parties

It was the best of birthday parties. Volvo is 75 years old and at its Swedish hometown of Gothenburg last week one of the key messages was that its cars are still as safe as houses - or should we say tanks. Andrew Hamilton attended a very special birthday.

The celebrations included a side impact roll-over test against the latest model, the four-wheel-drive XC90. It was one of 400 crash tests that are carried out at Volvo's Safety Centre, which was opened in 2000 but planned and largely built before Ford's takeover.

Today Ford sees Volvo as the centre for excellence in safety and many of the cars crash-tested there bear Ford badges or those of Ford subsidiaries like Jaguar.

The XC90 was hit side on at just over 40mph, yet the integrity of the body structure was maintained. Apart from damaged wheels, it looked almost driveable. The three dummy occupants didn't say much afterwards: they weren't too traumatised and will "live" to crash another day!

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We were able to get a detailed although static impression of the new XC90 which Volvo sees as a competitor for the BMW X5 and the Lexus RX300. Unlike rival vehicles, the XC90's engine is mounted transversely - as in a small hatchback - allowing the passenger compartment to be moved forward and a third row of seats to be added. These can be folded into the floor when not needed, just as in an Opel Zafira. Integrated child seats can slide forward.

Volvo promises the XC90 won't be a gas guzzler. It will have a choice of a 272bhp six-cylinder twin-turbo 2.9 litre petrol engine or a 163bhp five-cylinder 2.4 turbodiesel.

Its biggest market will be the US where astonishingly there were 11,000 roll-over accidents involving SUVs last year. Part of the Volvo armoury to prevent this is a Roll Stability Control system - it uses a gyroscope to sense when the angle of lean is becoming dangerous and, if there's an obvious risk, the ESP system is activated to regain stability.

XC90 will have its international press testing in August and should be seen in Ireland before year's end.

BIGGER news from Volvo in the next few years will be a small car to rival the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, the Audi A2 and the future BMW 1-series. According to Han Folkesson, Volvo's senior vice-president for research, development and purchasing, environmental issues are fuelling a trend towards smaller cars. "It has all to do with congestion in European cities and concerns about fuel economy," he says. "We have to challenge the assumption that bigger is safer. We know much more about energy absorption in vehicle collisions than we used to do."

The small car segment is price sensitive so a challenge for Volvo is not to make the new model too expensive. It will also have to be convincingly like a Volvo and not a revamped Ford Fiesta. The two models will share the same platform.

Volvo was founded in 1927 by Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson who, during a merry evening at a Stockholm restaurant, decided a Swedish car maker would be no bad thing. The founding fathers spoke about safety early on.

The first Volvo collision took place even before the first car was sold. In 1926, on the road from Stockholm to Gothenburg, one of nine OV4 prototypes collided head-on with an American car - it was badly damaged but the Volvo emerged with a few scratches.

Exports were initially modest, 24 cars in 1928, 27 in 1929. Neighbouring Finland was the first export country. Volvo is a big name in the US - exports to there started as late as 1955. Volvos first arrived in Ireland in 1967.

Volvo's safety firsts include laminated windscreen back in the 1940s and three-point safety belts in 1959.