Subtitled: The Dodge La Femme – Updated For The New Millennium. Or, featherlou’s prayers have been answered.
After 14 months on the drawing broad, the YCC (or Your Concept Car as it’s being dubbed), is a new Volvo concept vehicle designed by - and for - the fairer sex. According to Automobile.com, this new vehicle includes:[ul][li]Cinema seating[]Gear levers are located on the steering wheel[]An electronic parking brake[]Multiple front seat storage compartments[]A glass roof for better parallel parking visibility[]Push button, interchangeable seat pad options that change the interior color scheme[]A whole host of differently colored magnet floor mats[]A computerized body scanner to take measurements and automatically determine your personalized driving position[]Gull wing doors for easier entry and exit from the car[/ul]Unfortunately, there’s no mention of an oil-change-free engine option.[/li]
Now, before you ladies (and metrosexuals) run down to your local Volvo dealer to get on the buyer’s waiting list, keep in mind this is a concept car that will probably never go into production. However, some of the ‘ideas which they’ve initiated will be introduced into future’ Volvos. My hunch; the YCC is a trial balloon, and if all goes as planned, we’ll be seeing the Asian (ACC), African American (AACC), Jewish (JCC) and Italian (ICC) concepts sometime this decade.
Questions:
What, in your opinion, did the developers at Volvo omit from the design? How could they improve their concept? Would you like to see a floor board channel in front of the accelerator and brake pedals to accommodate your pumps? How about vanity lights around an oversized rear view mirror? Would you like to see a special compartment for your credit cards? What about an over the shoulder, X-strap seat belt configuration?
There’s gotta be plenty more options the Volvo team overlooked; do you have any you’d like to recommend?
I recall seeing this last year, and thinking that I liked a lot of the features built into the car – the good visibility, the sporty looks, the smart features, and if I remember right, the oil needs to be changed every 30,000 miles, or something like that. Who wouldn’t want all of that?
Some of these sound pretty good - I’ve always wondered where to put my purse when I’m driving and the car is full (I usually ask my husband to hold my purse for me), so I’ve been wanting a storage compartment for it, in the front where I can reach. The gull-wing doors and the computerized, personalized automatic seat adjustment-thingy seem like good things, too.
But, will someone please explain to me what “cinema seating” is? I’m picturing a movie theater fold-up chair with a big cupholder in the armrest, and I doubt that’s what it really is.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Imagine if the Volvo design team had borrowed a page from Mille Borne’s playbook and included ‘increvable’ tires and an ‘as du volant’ guidance system, they would’ve scored a perfect trifecta.
That’s what it really is. The rear seats stay folded up unless they’re being used. Interesting concept. It would be nice to have the seat backs fold down and have that nifty teak or whatever it is stripping. I don’t know if you can do both, though.
A family story told of a long-ago aunt who clipped a row of clothespins to the hem of her skirt so it wouldn’t blow up while she drove with the windows open. When I heard that as a child, I thought she was clever, but overly modest. Now, I’d say she was One Curious Dame.
I’m a guy, so I can’t think of many car details women would specifically want. Maybe dashboard controls that can be worked without messing up nail polish? Maybe cloth on the front part of seat cushions, so a woman with a short skirt won’t get 2nd degree burns on a hot day?
A friend of mine has a fast ski boat. It has a big chrome-plated post in the middle with a knob on top. That’s where you put the tow ropes. He told me, “Every woman I’ve ever had on the boat has grabbed that pole when the motor was revved up. They just love that knob.” Maybe one of those should go on the list.
Let’s not even go there. Oddly (alright, I cop a plea) enough, the mention of boats and knobs got me thinking about hood ornaments. Maybe something like a bronze Chippendale statuette or a chrome David.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think it has something to do with being more pony-tail friendly.
What it says in the link is: “…a glass roof all over, all the way to the back, so you can back up and know where your car is.” So just a large rear window that extends to the roof.
I’m intrigued by the comment: “High on the list of customer wants is a car with good visibility and is easy to maneuver. So we … put four corners on it.” I never thought about the importance of corners, but now that I think about it, the very boxy Volvo 244 was easier to park than any other car any I’ve driven.
Why did they go to the trouble of eliminating mechanical controls between the front seats (parking brake is electrical, gearshift is on the steering column) and then fill the space with a clumsy storage console? I’d think a flat floor would be more useful. That’s what I like about my minivan - lots of floor space.
What’s missing for me is room for a roof rack. As an avid bicyclist and beginning canoe paddler it’s an essential requirement, but I don’t see how you can fit one between those gullwing doors. And I don’t think this is a particularly male-centric requirement, as half the cyclists and paddlers I know are women.
By the way, was this the car that had the hood bolted on, so it could only be opened by a mechanic?
The hood is welded shut, yes. The entire panel has to be removed by the dealer in order to perform service.
What gets me is that this thing was designed by women. I honestly can’t believe my fellow female engineers could be this…well…stupid. They’ve cheerfully given in to almost every sterotype about female drivers.
Seriously – if there was no mention made of the car being “designed for women, by women,” are you all saying that you think the car is poorly designed? For example, if the area between the seats was described as a storage compartment for “all your handy articles” (or something) rather than for a woman’s purse, would you all make fun of it?
To put it another way, are most of you mocking the car because of its design, or simply because the words “woman” and “car” appear in the same sentence?
My view, again, is that I think it’s a cool looking car with a lot of ideas that really ought to be worked into any vehicle on the road, not just “chick cars.”
First: I think it is ugly (surely they will make it less ugly when it is a real car, not just a concept). But, more than anything, I’m pretty friggin’ insulted.
I should preface this with: I am in no way an uber feminist, yadda yadda, yadda yadda.
I can understand making a car with women in mind (interior design: things like compartments, etc etc), but having something like “A glass roof for better parallel parking visibility” is insulting. Would anyone dare to market a “man’s” car (say a Ford F250) in a manner that would imply the driver is incapable of parking otherwise?
Are you sure you aren’t the one inferring that the driver is otherwise incapable? I don’t know anyone who adores parallel parking; why wouldn’t anybody want it made easier if possible? Why rag on the women just because they’re willing to admit it?
My question is, can you open those gull-wing doors after you’ve wedged yourself into a spot at the mall that’s nanometers away from the car next to you? I honestly don’t know how those things work; they look like they’d whack something on the way up. I like the way the car looks from the back, and I like the cinema seats being up so you can chuck stuff back there. The ideas of having the gears on the steering wheel and the hood “nailed” shut disturb me.
What I really want to know though, is if they are capable of making a car that only needs the oil changed every 30,000 miles, why the heck aren’t they making every car that way?
