Volvo YCC: The car that women built

The Volvo Your Concept Car (YCC) was recently launched at the New York Auto Show. Designed and engineered from scratch by an all-women team, the effort reflects the German automaker's growing emphasis on women buyers as an important consumer group. In the US, 54 per cent of all Volvo buyers are women and their percentage in Europe is growing steadily. This triggered the idea of an all-women team taking charge of the decision-making on the development of a new concept car at Volvo in 2001.

The idea had the enthusiastic backing of the Volvo Concept Car's management team, as it felt that if it could build a car that satisfied women, it would exceed the expectations of men.

Volvo has a tradition, it says, of listening carefully to what women want. As early as the '80s, an all-women reference group was formed at the company to test and assess new models at early stages of their development. Moreover, during the development of the SUV XC90 model, a women's focus group was convened in California — all potential buyers of this vehicle. The group's views helped shape the Volvo SUV's distinctive features and functions.

For its YCC, the company put up a project team of five highly-experienced women automotive professionals who brought to the project a broad spectrum of experience in various aspects of automotive engineering. The three chief designers, appropriately enough, were also women.

The all-women team was given a clear brief and a free hand to develop a concept car capable of winning the approval of that most demanding Volvo customer category of all — the independent woman professional.

What the YCC project team found was that women customers in the premium segment want everything that men want in terms of performance, prestige and style. But they also wanted things like:

Smart storage solutions
A car that was easy to get in and out of
Good visibility
A car that could be personalised
Minimal maintenance
A car that was easy to park