Awesome Volvo

The guys at Volvo Trucks pull another outlandish stunt, this time putting Charlie the hamster behind the wheel of a 15-metric ton truck, steering the vehicle through precarious turns with nothing more than a carrot as motivation.

Volvo heads in a bold new direction with this sporty 2-seater. Has a plug-in hybrid powertrain with appx. 400hp, and an interior packed with luxe finishes including hand-carved wood inlays and a leather instrument panel. Video here.

An impressive demo of Volvo Truck’s Collision Warning and Emergency Braking System which is able to alert a driver and automatically stop a truck, preventing rear-end crashes at up to 70km/h.

Polestar Performance amps up the normally tame Volvo S60 with a 508hp turbocharged engine that can propel it from 0 to 62 in 3.9 secs, along with sporty 19-inch wheels and Brembo brakes.

Test footage of the European Commission’s Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE). It involves a platoon of cars running without help from human drivers, save for the lead vehicle.

Volvo demos its latest tech, a pedestrian-avoidance system which is supposed to detect people in the direct path of the oncoming car. Looks like they need to stamp this one “Beta.”

Nouphone J. Bansasine’s Volvo SC90 sports sedan concept has been described as having “immense amounts of convex and concave surfacing”, which is a long way of saying that it is damn sexy.

Harkening back to a time when Volvos were sporty, Mattias Vocks is aiming to remake the classic Volvo P1800; this one will pack a modern XC90/S80 4.4L V8, turbocharged to 550-600hp.

Volvo’s staid design language takes a backseat with this 2010 Volvo S60 concept, due to bow at the Detroit Auto Show; an angular fascia + high shoulder line = sporty Swedes.

The Extreme Gravity Car by Volvo takes soap-box derby racing to, well, extremes. For one, they flip the rider on their stomach and face them forward; the racer can hit up to 35 mph.