Wallenbergs May Buy Volvo
The Motor Authority says the the flying Wallenbergs have joined a consortium in the hunt for ownership of Volvo. The Swedish family already control an investment group that owns an 11 percent stake of Scania, the truck-maker. In his book "The Rise of the Wallenbergs," author David Bartol claims the W's are serious players, controlling most of Sweden’s top companies. “In no other Western country, does a single family enjoy the same degree of influence or authority." There is some irony here. Henry Ford was one of the world's most notorious anti-Semites. Raoul Wallenberg was famous for saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi slaughter.
Glenn is a baby-boomer, born in 1954. Along with his wife, he makes his home in Connecticut. Employed in the public sector as an Information Tedchnology Specialist, Glenn has long been a car fan. Past rides have included heavy iron such as a 1967 GTO, to a V8 T-Bird. In between those high-horsepower cars, he's owned a pair of BMW 320i's. Now, with a daily commute of 40 miles, his concession to MPG dictates the ownership of a 2006 Honda Civic coupe which, while fun to drive, is a modest car for a pistonhead. As an avid reader, Glenn enjoys TTAC, along with many other auto-realated sites, and the occasional good book. As an avid electronic junkie, Glenn holds an Advanced Class amateur ("ham") radio license, and is into many things electronic. From a satellite radio and portable GPS unit in the cars, to a modest home theater system and radio-intercom in his home, if it's run by the movement of electrons, he's interested. :-)
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You know, most of the Wealthy in the USA were Nazi sympathizers until our entry into WWII. Fascism is very appealing when you're going to be one of the people in charge.
In the British Newspaper The Sunday Telegraph for Sunday July 15th it says that Volvo is being sold, maybe to BMW or Magna, interesting times eh!
"Fascism is very appealing when you’re going to be one of the people in charge." Thats true about a lot of things
You've hit both marks... The C30 has been a strictly Euro model and our version won't be seeing a 2.4i engine or the 2.0 diesel. Without those engines it's meerely yet another competitor to the Honda Civic Si and Mini Cooper (and a far heavier one at that.) It could become a Jetta killer with either of the European engines mentioned. Or it could possibly leapfrog the Rabbit, Corolla, and mainstream Civics if Volvo North America saw fit to at least include the 2.4i engine. But of course, Volvo of North America has to prtect it's sterling reputation of building high-end cars. Therefore you won't see any European engine other than the single one that's designed to maximize the MSRP. This is not the first time Volvo of North America has blown it. In fact, they have a long history of making extremely bad choices when it comes to determining what engines SHOULD be given for our market. Let's take the S80 for instance. The S80 would have been one of the best cars in the US for the frequent driver (those who drive 25k miles a year and up) if the diesel option had been available. With that engine, the S80 would return highway mileage in the mid-40's. Then of course, we could have also bought the two 2.4 five-cylinders of 140 and 170bhp, the 2.0 Turbo (180bhp), or even a 2.5 Turbo with 210 horsepower. Instead, we ended up with one exceedingly underwhelming dog of an engine in the 2.9L that becomes expensive and unreliable (and $7k more expensive) with two low pressure turbos attached to it. Why does this happen? Because Volvo of North America knows what the market wants. Never mind the continually falling J.D. Power scores for customer retention or the inability to market their vehicles to anyone under 30. All is well in their world of blandness and limited choice. In short, if the C30 doesn't come with the same engine choices... it ceases being the 'same' car.