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Your Concept Car. Designed For Your Life

2 March 2004

Volvo’s latest concept car – YCC (Your Concept Car) – makes its world debut at the Geneva motor show on 2 March and is the creation of an all-women project team.

• Hi-Tech: Personalised driving position and ‘Autopark’ for easy parking
• Gull-wing doors for easier access and improved visibility
• Choice and flexibility: the interior can be easily personalised or updated
• Smart interior storage solutions for laptops, mobiles, etc
• Ease of maintenance: Easy-clean paint, exterior screen washing filler points and self diagnostics to automatically book services
• Designed by an all-women team to target the most demanding premium customer: the independent, professional car buyer

The idea for the concept car arose in 2001 following a series of workshops at Volvo by Marti Barletta, an American marketing expert on female consumer patterns who claimed: "If you meet the expectations of women, you exceed the expectations of men".

The female YCC project management team consists of five senior Volvo managers and three chief designers with a broad spectrum of experience.

SMART SOLUTIONS

• Storage space created between front seats by using electronic handbrake and moving gearchange controls to steering wheel
• Cinema style rear seats for more flexible and practical storage
• Gull-wing doors
• 'Ergovision' for a personalised driving position
• 'Space-check' and 'Autopark' function: easy parking S

Storage
"Moving the gear levers up by the steering wheel and using an integrated, electronic handbrake freed up space for storage in the centre console," says Cindy Charwick, who designed the YCC's interior.

As a result, the centre console has space for a shallow compartment for keys, mobile phones, coins and other small items, and deeper ones big enough for bags and laptop computers. A wastepaper basket completes the theme of sheer convenience.

Cinema Style Rear Seats
"Most of our target group said they carry a bag in the rear seat far more often than passengers. So we decided to design that area primarily for storage but with cinema style seats instantly convertible for two passengers whenever needed," says Camilla Palmertz, one of the project managers.

Gull-wing Door
"We chose a gull-wing door with a modest wingspan to help us showcase the YCC’s interior solutions," says Elna Holmberg, technical project manager. It also brought other advantages. It increases your visibility over your shoulder because the B-pillar is further back and makes it easy to load items behind the driver’s seat.

To avoid the gull-wing doors being impractical they are split into two smaller upper and lower sections. The lower sill section lowers automatically when the door is opened.

Ergovision
"In the YCC, we have combined ergonomics and line of vision adjustment in our ‘Ergovision’ system, which we are in the process of patenting," says Elna Holmberg.

This is how it works. Your body is scanned at your Volvo dealer and the data of your proportions (height, leg length, arm length etc) is digitally stored on your key. When you put your key on the centre console, the seat, steering wheel, pedals, head restraint and seat belt will be adjusted automatically to suit your personalised driving position.

Space-check and Autopark
Parallel parking assistance is a function both males and females requested. When you need to park between two cars, first you need to check there's enough space. Pull up alongside the space and press the YCC's parking assistance button once for the 'space-check' function. If the system says yes, you can then select the 'Autopark' function and the car helps with the steering to manoeuvre into the space, while the driver still controls the accelerator, brakes and gearshift.

MORE CHOICE AND FLEXIBILITY

• Eight choices of interchangeable interior décor
• Adjustable ride height

The YCC feels exceptionally light and spacious inside, rather like a modern living room inspired by a Scandinavian design using natural materials and plenty of natural and ambient lighting.

But the YCC is designed to suit individual tastes and choices of décor. You can radically change the look of the car interior whenever you feel like it. There are eight exchangeable (and washable) seat pad options to choose from, everything from dark brown leather, linen and wool, to a shimmering yellow-green embroidered seat pad. Each has a matching carpet – also easy to swap over – for a whole range of styles inspired by Scandinavian interior design.

"No need to trade in your car just because you have grown tired of its colour scheme!" says Maria Uggla, the colour and trim designer for the YCC.

For all-round flexibility you can also choose the ride height – either high, if you like a commanding view of the road, or low, for a sportier feel.

MINIMAL MAINTENANCE

• Exterior filling points for fuel and washer fluid
• Automatic diagnostic checks
• Easy-clean paint

The YCC has made car care about as easy as it can get.

"The only time I ever open my bonnet is when I need to fill up with windscreen washer fluid," says Tatiana Butovitsch Temm, YCC communications manager. "So we asked ourselves whether you should have to open the bonnet just to do that. We realised that it could just as easily be done from the outside of the car."

That is why the YCC has two filling points like those used for racing cars beside the door on the driver’s side. One for petrol, the other for washer fluid. No fumbling with filler caps or bonnet latches!

The YCC also carries out its own diagnostic checks at regular intervals and notifies your service centre if anything needs attention and arranges a service too. This also ensures that any spare parts or materials will be there when they are needed.

An easy-clean exterior paint finish behaves rather like the coating on a non-stick pan – dirt finds it very hard to cling on in the first place and, if it does, it washes off very easily.

ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION

• 5-cylinder, 215bhp engine
• Integrated Starter-Generator (ISG)

The YCC is prepared for a low-emission 215 bhp, five-cylinder engine with Volvo's Integrated Starter-Generator (ISG). This has several advantages. It prevents unnecessary idling by shutting down the engine automatically when waiting at traffic lights, for instance. It comes to life again as soon as the driver presses the accelerator. It also provides extra torque at low revs, which means maximum power right from the start.

The YCC has a six-speed Powershift gearbox. You can either choose a fully automatic mode, or use the controls on the steering column to change gear.

Note to editors:
A full international press pack and wide selection of images are available at www.media.volvocars.co.uk

Women buy more cars than ever and represent an increasingly important group of customers with 54 per cent of Volvos in America now bought by women, for example.

Volvo has a long-standing tradition of researching women’s requirements in a car. As early as the 1980s, a reference group of female Volvo staff was set up to test and assess new models at early stages of their development. And more recently, during the development of the XC90, a women’s focus group was convened in California – the homeland of the SUV – to help shape the Volvo SUV’s distinctive features and design.

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