Volvo's Coupe XC concept is supposed to evoke a vision of an active outdoor life, said Senior Vice President Thomas Ingenlath.
Volvo is in the midst of debuting three concept vehicles at three different auto shows, and at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, it showed the Volvo Concept XC Coupe, which is the second of three.
It’s the successor to the Volvo Concept C that we first saw at the Frankfurt Motor Show last autumn, which Volvo insiders confirmed as giving the world a good sense of the company’s future design direction.
The the second of three concepts is supposed to show classic Scandinavian design, “timeless beauty,” according to Volvo Senior Vice President Thomas Ingenlath, as well as an “active outdoor life.”
The Volvo Concept XC Coupe is expected to return in production form later this year as a coupe version of the next-generation XC90 crossover. One has to wonder if it will retain the 21-inch wheels, but much of the design is clearly classic Volvo, especially its overall shape as well as the taillights, but with a twist.
The Volvo Concept XC Coupe was intended to blend both new and old design elements.
Suggesting the show car was influenced by “modern high-tech sports equipment,” the two-door, four-seater features a longer dash-to-axle design – the distance from the front axle to the dashboard, which tends to give the car a more muscular, well-planted appearance.
(Volvo Concept XC Coupe captures honor from Eyes on Design. For more, Click Here.)
The design adopts both a new hood and a bow-like beltline running virtually the length of the entire show car. The front of the Concept XC Coupe is distinguished by a new “floating” grille design, which is flanked by distinctive T-shaped Daytime Running Lamp “light pipes.”
(Click Here to get more background on the Concept XC Coupe.)
One thing hasn’t changed: the Swedish maker’s long fixation on safety. A closer look reveals that the new show car relies on a new surround radar system as well as camera technology that can give the car’s automated safety system a 360-degree view of the road.