The Volvo VESC, the ''Volvo Experimental Safety Car,'' was a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

made by

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

to showcase a number of innovative passenger safety features. It was unveiled in 1972 at the

Geneva Motor Show The Geneva International Motor Show is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show is hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon is organised by th ...

History

In the late 1960s, Volvo had a first project with a focus on passenger safety called P1560, which resulted in a few different prototype models being made. The project was canceled in 1971, partly because of uncertainties about future safety rules - especially in the United States. The following project was oriented along the contemporary

Experimental Safety Vehicle Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) is the designation for experimental concept cars which are used to test car safety ideas. In 1973, the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. DOT announced its ESV project, the aim of which was to obtain ...

(ESV) projects of US car companies. Using a

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...

, it would be significantly larger than previous Volvo models. The plan called for ten prototypes, as a number had already been built into a new car model that would complement the 140 Series and become a replacement for

Volvo 164 The Volvo 164 is a 4-door, 6-cylinder luxury sedan unveiled by Volvo at the Paris Motor Show early in October 1968 and first sold as a 1969 model. 46,008 164s were built before the car was succeeded by the 264 in 1975. The 164 was Volvo's first ...

. This project was also canceled, but a lot of the design and the already finished prototypes were used for the VESC project.

Safety concepts

The long car was designed for surviving a frontal collision at : The front bumper area was made particularly long; in the case of a collision, the engine would be forced down under the cabin floor by a suitably shaped and reinforced

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

; a spring would pull the steering column into the dashboard (this has since become standard, but in those times it was still common for the driver to be injured getting caught between the wheel and the seat); at the back of the front seats were large cushions to protect rear seat passengers. For resilience against a

side collision A side collision is a vehicle crash where the side of one or more vehicles is impacted. These crashes typically occur at intersections, in parking lots, and when two vehicles pass on a multi-lane roadway. Occurrences and effects For fatalit ...

, the car had strong reinforcements and

crumple zones Crumple zones, crush zones, or crash zones are a structural safety feature used in vehicles, mainly in automobiles, to increase the time over which a change in velocity (and consequently momentum) occurs from the impact during a collision by ...

in the doors. VESC would cope with a roof before reaching 2.4 m height without pushing more than 75 mm. The headrests were folded into the seats and folded upwards. Other features of the Volvo VESC were

anti-lock brake An anti-lock braking system (ABS) is a safety anti-skid braking system used on aircraft and on land vehicles, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, and buses. ABS operates by preventing the wheels from locking up during braking, thereby maintai ...

s, back-up warning signal, integrated

roll cage A roll cage is a specially engineered and constructed frame built in (or sometimes around, in which case it is known as an exo cage) the passenger compartment of a vehicle to protect its occupants from being injured or killed in an accident, pa ...

, three-point seatbelts which pulled tight during a crash, front and rear airbags, headlamp washers and wipers, automatic ride height control, center mounted fuel tank, automatic fuel shutoff mechanism, warning lights in the doors and an early rear-view camera provided by

Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...

that used a 6.5-mm Cosmicar lens mounted between the rear taillights sending footage to a television screen in the cabin.

Outcome

Much of the car - especially the front - heavily influenced the upcoming 200 series, launched in 1974. A Volvo VESC is on display at the

Volvo Museum The Volvo Museum is in Gothenburg, Sweden. It covers the development of Sweden's leading vehicle manufacturer Volvo, from the first ÖV 4 to the current cars, trucks, buses and other products. The museum also has displays of Volvo Aero and Volvo ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

History

Safety concepts

Outcome

References