The elegant new Volvo Concept Coupe is the first of a series of three concept cars to be revealed by Volvo featuring
the new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). It is the first design by
the new Senior Vice President Thomas Ingenlath since he joined the
company last year, and will debut at this year's Frankfurt Motor Show.
Developed in-house, the new Scalable Product Architecture
liberates Volvo’s designers and engineers from the limitations of
previous cross-brand platforms (sharing platforms with Ford). The SPA
reveals how Volvo can shape their cars on their own and also paves the way for the introduction of the all-new Volvo XC90 in 2014.
Visually, the car looks elegant and exudes class. The face is
characterised by a new topography on the bonnet and the floating grille.
T-shaped DRL lights look brilliant and one can expect all Volvos of the
future to be characterised by similar looking ones. With the distance
between the dashboard and the front axle extended and the windshield
moved slightly rearwards, the Concept Coupe clearly echos the design of
the Volvo P1800, a great looking car from the 1960s.
The Concept Coupe is laden with good quality materials on the
inside. There is leather on the instrument panel, inlays made of
naturally aged wood and dark blue woven carpets blended with machined
metal details. A large portrait touch-screen in the centre does away
with almost all buttons keeping the console as minimalist as possible.
There is also a head-up display in front of the driver.
A petrol plug-in hybrid driveline is what powers the concept.
It is basically a two-litre Drive-E petrol engine with a supercharger
and turbocharger working in tandem. The petrol engine is teamed with an
electric motor on the rear axle. This gives it a total output of around
400PS and over 600Nm of torque.
