Quebecker helps Swedes out of the box
Volvo hopes designer from Sté-Thèrese can lift sales
BERTRAND MAROTTE
From Monday's Globe and Mail
MONTREAL — Don't use the word "boxy" around Simon Lamarre, a top designer at AB Volvo.
The 38-year-old Quebecker, who stumbled into auto styling after following his girlfriend to her native Sweden, is the latest crusader in Volvo's campaign to banish the stalwart car maker's reputation for sturdy but boring-looking vehicles.
"The image of the boxy Volvo disappeared about 10 years ago, and yet four out of five people on the street still say it makes big, boxy cars," says a frustrated Mr. Lamarre, a graduate of the Université du Québec à Montréal's environmental design school who grew up in the bedroom suburb of Ste-Thérèse, but moved to Sweden 17 years ago.
Mr. Lamarre -- fluent in Swedish and with a family near Goteborg on the west coast of Sweden -- was at Montreal's auto show recently for the unveiling of Volvo's first compact model.
The bid to win over Generation Y with a zippy, stylish compact car caps more than a decade of efforts by Volvo, now part of Ford Motor Co., to pump some pizzazz into its staid, safety-first image.
The C30, a sporty, two-door hatchback aimed squarely at the 25- to 35-year-old urban singles set, is a departure for Volvo, a company widely associated with roomy, family-friendly vehicles built for tough northern winters.
Mr. Lamarre says Volvo is betting big on the C30 to freshen its image and lure first-time Volvo buyers.
"We realized we had to do something new again [after introducing the successful XC90 sport-utility car in 2003]," said Mr. Lamarre, who started as a clay modeller at Volvo in 1995 after a stint at rival Saab.
In trying to fill a big missing piece in its product portfolio with a car in the premium compact category, Volvo is "taking a big step outside its comfort zone," adds Mr. Lamarre, who designed the C30's exterior with its distinctive all-glass hatch and who describes his approach as opening up renowned Swedish "form-follows-function" design to global influences.
Volvo is counting on the C30, which is scheduled to be introduced in April to Canada with a $27,495 base price, to tap into growing North American demand for small cars.
It's going up against the Audi A3, BMW's iconic Mini Cooper, the Mazda 3 and Volkswagen GTI.
James Sanfilippo, executive vice-president and senior analyst with auto consultant AMCI in Michigan, is impressed.
"That's some of the best small-car architecture in the world right now. They've nailed it. They've gone from under the radar screen to bull's eye."
But Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., is more skeptical, citing an already highly competitive premium compact segment.
"That segment is quite difficult to make money in. You have to be both competitively priced but also have a lot of content, putting pressure on your margins."
Ms. Lindland also remains to be convinced by Volvo's plan to win over new, younger Volvo drivers with the C30 and hang on to them as loyal, long-term buyers of other models.
"The No. 1 issue with that strategy is that it has to be an absolutely flawless ownership experience. That's the risk that you run with this strategy of trying to win over a very young consumer."
Volvo has not been a money maker for Ford lately.
Ford said last year that it didn't expect the unit to be profitable in 2006. Volvo's plan to introduce seven new models or new versions of existing cars over the next few years -- including the C30 -- is part of a push to reverse the money-losing trend. Mr. Lamarre says the sales target for the C30 is 65,000 units in its first full year.
Volvo hopes total worldwide vehicle sales will jump to 600,000 by 2009 from about 400,000 today.
