They Have Low Carbon Emissions, Too!
By Kevin Miller
10.29.2008
Volvo Car Corporation has introduced plastic-bodied vehicles this week that have no carbon emissions. Unfortunately, these are not road-going cars. They are toys meant for children. Toy versions of Volvo XC90, XC70 and C30 models will be produced in soft, safe and durable plastic in yellow, red, green and blue.
While Volvo is implementing workforce reductions in their vehicle plants and corporate offices, their partner Viking Toys will be tooling up for production of the toy Volvo vehicles. Viking Toys’ concept is to make soft, safe, high-quality cars for children starting from the age of 1 year. The products must be so safe that a child cannot pull off parts and put them in his/her mouth. All materials are guaranteed to be free of harmful chemicals.
“Many of today’s children are familiar with and play with Viking Toys’ cars at home and at their day-care centers. This makes it all the more enjoyable for us to be able to offer these well-made products with an unmistakable Volvo design,” says Pontus Berger, who is in charge of licensing model cars at Volvo Car Corporation in Göteborg.
While an in-house designer at Viking Toys was given the task of designing the Volvo XC70 and XC90 in a typical Viking Toys-style, the toy version of the Volvo C30 has been designed by Simon Lamarre at Volvo Cars, the same man behind the exterior design of the “full-sized” Volvo C30.
Toy cars from Viking Toys are sold in 50 countries and have been on the market for 35 years. The company produces between 3.5 and 4 million cars a year. Volvo Car Corporation has been making vehicles since 1927, though typical sales are less than 500,000 vehicles per year. Consumer deliveries of Viking-produced Volvo vehicles are scheduled to begin by December 2008.
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