Volvo

Volvo S60 T5

Deck the halls: it was 1978 and gravel-voiced, slide-guitar-wielder Chris Rea was driving home for Christmas. Except he wasn’t. Rea had lost his license for hitting the sauce in perfectly rock-star fashion.

Volvo XC90

My first encounter with a Volvo came in the form of a friend’s mother’s 245, sitting outside her modest home like a trusted family friend. The Volvo 200 series ran from 1974 to 1993, selling over 2.8 million units and becoming ubiquitous with British life in the process. It was overtly safety-conscious; the equivalent of fitting your child with lifelong orange armbands. But the idea that a car represents a certain set of society is becoming rarer as the automotive industry rushes to build as many vehicles with international appeal, using as few distinctive parts as possible. Despite being regarded as decidedly Swedish, fast forward to 2017 and we’ve seen…