Five years, five cars. As a commemoration to Volvo's fifth straight year at the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) tradeshow, the Swedish manufacturer will show five highly modified versions of its vehicles. Ranging from the all-new XC70 to a high-performance version of the S80 T6, an eye-popping C30 to a C70 convertible, and a one-off fully custom hot rod, this year marks Volvo Cars most ambitious SEMA effort ever.
Four of the concepts are based on production versions of the Volvo XC70, the S80 T6, the C70 Convertible and the C30, while the fifth car is a built-from-the-ground-up, totally custom hot rod using major Volvo components from the previous-generation S80.
Built purely as design concepts and prototypes, each car is decidedly different while still remaining uniquely Volvo. Once again, Volvo worked with Heico Sportiv in Germany to build the S80 T6 HPC and C30, while Caresto was tapped to build the C70 and hot rod. The XC70 concept was conceived from the Volvo Cars design team and built by Aria, a concept car building firm located in Irvine, CA. Creativity is a must at SEMA but Volvo has always insisted on one rule: all Volvo safety features must remain functional. Other than that, they were free to let their imaginations run wild.
Additional information on all five SEMA Volvos, along with information about the production cars, may be found at http://www.volvocars-pr.com/. Here is just a glimpse of what each car is about:
Text and photos: Volvo