Gothenburg trip 2015

[scvolvo]

Your welcome Emlyn and everyone else.

It's been a fantastic two days, organising such an event is pointless without all the people going throwing themselves into the experience, which everyone did whole heartedly.

Everyone had fun, at the Volvo events and in the evening when we where quite literally crying with laughter, mostly at Charlie who is always ready to see the funny side of things.

Hopefully some of you will attend the next trip and we shall maybe look into a two night trip next time

[JonathanD]

Hej från Göteborg!!!

Or, greetings from Gothenburg, on a beautiful sunny Thursday.

Many many many (I can't put enough manys in) thanks to Steve (scvolvo) for organising this - it was great to meet so many fellow Volvo aficionados in the heartland, the very home of Volvo. There was so much to see I felt a bit like a stereotypical Japanese tourist walking around taking photos of everything on my phone!!!

I trust that those of you who flew back home yesterday all made it back safe and sound, that those of you who are en route home at a slower pace have safe trips home and that any of you who, like me, have stayed on in Gothenburg enjoy the rest of your stay in Gothenburg and have a safe trip home.

The Volvo Museum, which opened in 1995 and is located at Arendal, was truly fascinating and a place where you could spend literally hours and hours soaking up Volvo's history. It is clearly overwhelming biased towards cars, which may suggest the the joint funding of the museum by Volvo Cars and Volvo 'proper' is skewed to be majority Volvo Cars funding, and personally I would have liked to have seen some more trucks, buses etc - but then that would require a significantly larger facility!!! I loved some of the rarer exhibits of cars that never actually made it into production, like the very American-styled 1950s 'Phillip', the 263 hatchback and the numerous concept cars.

After an early start, most of yesterday was spent at Torslanda. On arriving my impression was of having come to Volvo mini city - the sheer scale of the whole enterprise cannot be underestimated. Adjoining the Visitor Centre is the Factory Delivery Centre where USA and Canada customers can take delivery of their new cars, on temporary 6 month red registration plates, then use them for a European driving holiday, and return them to Gothenburg to be shipped as per normal. I counted at least 3 such deliveries being made.

The limited Blue Train Factory Tour, limited due to current confidentiality issues, was a mind-blowing insight into another world of sophisticated mechanisation with, relatively speaking, few humans to be seen. The one production line produces V60, V70/XC70, S80 and XC90 in both RHD and LHD and rather than batches of each model being produced a seemingly random procession of different models in a mixture of RHD and LHD rolls down the line determined by the order in which the factory orders hit the central system, and the computerisation of everything means the machines know what model is coming next and what the requirements are for that model, e.g. what each machine needs to do in producing a LHD V60 will be different to a RHD V60 and both will be entirely different to a V70 etc etc etc.

The Brand Experience Centre was a lively, fun way of exploring the Volvo brand and what it stands for. Unsurprisingly safety is an important core value but, surprisingly, is perhaps not the most important core value as it is not necessarily the single most important factor driving people to buy Volvo cars as opposed to cars produced by other manufacturers.

The climax was the Demo Center (sic). Sadly, time seemed to speed up somewhat at this point as very quickly our track time was up. Top speed on one part of the track is 90kph, and there are plenty of bends and undulations to allow you to get a good feel for each car over a couple of laps...as well as test the acceleration...of course!!!! Being an old man now I stuck to autos, and fortunately most of the available cars were autos. My one disappointment was the XC90, a car I had been really looking forward to driving for the first time. Inside it really is a beautiful car, but on the road it felt every inch of its huge size and did not inspire my confidence in the bends. The D5 2.0 litre 4 did a respectable job of hauling around its not inconsiderable weight though. The available XC90 D5 was in R-Design trim, a trim level which hasn't quite gone on sale even in Sweden - so that was a bit of a treat. A few cars really impressed me on the day - V40 T5 2.0 litre 4, S60 T6 2.0 litre 4, and two V60 hybrids - D5 Twin Engine and D6. Now I'm very fond of the 2.4 litre 5 in my S80 D5, but I have to say the new Drive-E family of 2.0 litre 4 engines certainly perform, and if anything I'd actually rate the petrol engines over the diesel engine based on my laps. Having been so impressed by the V60 hybrids perhaps the XC90 might be able to redeem itself with me if I ever get the chance to try the T8 hybrid version of it...hint hint Volvo!!!

After that excitement the only thing left to do was to return to the Visitor Centre and relieve myself of some SEK in the shop!!!

I must add that all Volvo staff were incredibly friendly and helpful.

I would say to anyone who gets the opportunity to do this in the future...just do it, you won't regret it!!! I'd do it all again tomorrow in a heartbeat!!!

Jonathan

[cumbrianmale]

Currently sat at Rodbyhavn waiting to board the ferry. We will have a few days in Amsterdam on the way home.

[scvolvo]

Your welcome john

And not long til your back in brightly Simon!

[Saaamon]

Really was a great couple of days! Big thanks to Stephen for arranging it and to all the people on the trip, couldn't of wished to of done it with a better group of people!

[thetroublemaker]

Well we are at the airport departure gate now waiting for our flight to arrive to take us back to sunny stanstead

[oblark]

Here is selection of the photo's I took at the museum.

[oblark]

And these where taken at the crash and driving centres.





The new XC90 D5 - under powered



S60 cross country D4



The new XC90 T6 - nice car went well



XC60 T5 - very nice car and went very well



I also drove a XC70 D3 or D4 and I was very disapointed in it's performance, very under powered.

[scvolvo]

Just a thought, last year I made a calendar of my cars and I'm thinking about making a Gothenburg calendar with the pics, only for those that went.

Anyone else fancy this? Not expensive

[wantavolvo]

Originally Posted by scvolvo

Your welcome Emlyn and everyone else.

It's been a fantastic two days, organising such an event is pointless without all the people going throwing themselves into the experience, which everyone did whole heartedly.

Everyone had fun, at the Volvo events and in the evening when we where quite literally crying with laughter, mostly at Charlie who is always ready to see the funny side of things.

Hopefully some of you will attend the next trip and we shall maybe look into a two night trip next time

I will be up for it....any ideas when?