Volvo Canada honoured with CAA Pyramid Award for Safety
For immediate release
Volvo Canada honoured with CAA Pyramid Award for Safety
TORONTO, February 13, 2003 – Volvo Cars of Canada Ltd. has been awarded a coveted Pyramid Award for Safety Innovation by the Canadian Automobile Association for two of the ground-breaking safety technologies incorporated in the new Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle. The award was announced today by CAA president David Flewelling.
The award, one of two safety awards presented by the association for 2003, is among more than 15 major awards earned by the new Volvo XC90 since it was introduced in the fall of 2002.
The CAA award recognized two innovations in the 2003 XC90 – the Volvo Roll-Over Protection System (ROPS), which combines both active and passive safety technologies to protect occupants of the vehicle from the threat of roll-over, and the vehicle’s special “impact compatibility” architecture which is designed to help protect the occupants in smaller vehicles involved in a collision with the larger XC90.
The award was presented to Paul Cummings, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars of Canada.
“The integrity of the Canadian Automobile Association places CAA – and this award – in a category all its own in the minds of consumers,” Cummings told a press conference at the presentation. “The reputation of the CAA, and the reach you enjoy across the country, makes this award so important in so many ways.”
“Safety is woven deeply into the fabric of the history and the culture of Volvo,” Cummings said. “It’s one of our core values. So it’s especially rewarding when an organization as august as the CAA acknowledges our achievements.”
The CAA Pyramid Award for Safety Innovation was established in 2000 and presented for the first time in 2001. No winner was named in 2002.
XC90 was named Best New SUV (Over $45,000) by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada last November. Since its introduction, the editors of the respected French language new vehicle annual le Guide de l’Auto 2003 named the Volvo XC90 the Best Buy, Sport Utility Vehicle ($35,000-$60,000) and Sport Utility of the Year, and a jury of top automobile journalists from across the continent voted it North American Truck of the Year.
In October, XC90 was presented Motor Trend Magazine’s 2003 Sport/Utility of the Year Award, while Britain’s What Car? magazine named XC90 Best 4x4 in its Car of the Year 2003 awards. In January, the readers and editors of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) magazine Automotive Engineering International selected the XC90 as Best Engineered Vehicle of 2003.
Volvo Cars of Canada is part of the Volvo Car Corporation of Göteborg, Sweden. The company provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to the 42 Volvo automobile retailers across the country. The 2003 Volvo vehicle line includes the flagship S80 luxury sedan, versatile V70 wagon and rugged V70 XC (Cross Country), exotic C70 convertible, the sporty S60 sedan, compact S40 and V40, and the award-winning new Volvo XC90.
- 30 -
Contact:
Doug Mepham
MacDonald & Co.
1-877-975-1572 or 416 727 4543 (mobile)
doug.mepham@sympatico.ca
More information and a selection of photos of the 2003 Volvo XC90 are available at:www.volvocars-pr.ca