Volvo Your Concept Car
In the current political and legislative environment, you'd be forgiven for thinking that excluding people from a job on the basis of gender is probably illegal. Volvo obviously don't think so and have taken all the men out of the loop on their latest concept car.

The YCC - or 'Your Concept Car' - is an investigation into design for women, by women. Volvo are keen to point out that 54 per cent of its US customers are female (our research puts the figure higher when you consider usage patterns) and that female customers in the premium market sector are the most demanding of all car purchasers. They therefore decided to design a car from scratch with key changes in mind - reflecting their research which found that women look for good accessibility, efficient storage space, ease of parking and the ability to customise a vehicle in addition to more typical requirements.

Certain measures illustrate this clearly, such as the removal of manual handbrake and gearstick in favour of dash mounted controls that frees up space for items that you may carry around with you. Other features are not so logical however.

"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 instantly convertible to seats for two passengers whenever needed," says Camilla Palmertz.

Normal rear seats are replaced by 'cinema' style fold-down seats which seems a rather drastic measure in response to the need to accomodate 'a bag'.

The exterior styling is more fluid than current production models and is reminiscent of the Safety Concept Car from a couple of years ago. The rear is bold with slim and sleek lighting that departs from the typical Volvo treatment. It does, however, resemble recent designs from other manufacturers without building significantly on Volvo visual heritage.

Possibly the most contraversial aspect of the vehicle is the interior upholstery.

"Iím certain that our male customers will love this concept car," says Hans-Olov Olsson, Volvo boss. With the YCC's flower patterned seating, we think he may be wrong.

A prominent feature of the YCC is the use of gull-wing doors - apparently to aid access and simplify visibility from the driving position. Despite parking being considered a prominent design issue, using a supermarket or underground car park with the YCC will be a truly novel experience.

Volvo's 'Your Concept Car' fails to convince on key points. Although there are many strong interior and exterior forms and interesting details, the vehicle is subject to some fairly serious flaws. Given that the number of C70 sales globally is negligable in proportion to overall Volvo output and that the bigger Volvos are favourites in the US, perhaps it would have been more pertinent to investigate a more family-orientated vehicle?

Details
Make	Volvo
Model	Your Concept Car
Year Shown	2004
Event	n/a
Designer(s)	n/a
Propulsion
Type	n/a
Capacity	n/a
Dimensions
Vehicle Width (mm)	n/a
Vehicle Length (mm)	n/a
Seating Capacity	2+2
Performance
Top Speed	n/a
0-60	n/a