Making Space for Ponytails and Many Shopping Bags

Wednesday, March 3, 2004
By Mark Landler

New York Times Writer

"Men and women really want the same things in cars," Camilla Palmertz, 36, the Volvo project manager, said. "But women want more. There's no car out there right now that fulfills all their criteria."

The Volvo YCC draws attiontion at the Geneva International Motor Show. The car was developed with female drivers in mind. Camilla Palmertz, left, and Anna Rosen were part of the all-woman design team that created the YCC for Volvo.

Image Credit: The New York Times

GENEVA -- NYT
Car shows, it has to be said, are for men. The talk is of torque and horsepower. The biggest names, Porsche and Ferrari, are testosterone on wheels, while the lesser ones adorn their cars with slinky women, lending these shows a retro feel that is part "The Price Is Right," part Playboy Club.

So when Volvo rolled into the Geneva Motor Show this week with a car designed by women, for women, the reaction among the mostly male crowd can best be described as a collective grinding of the gears.

They gaped at the car's gull-wing doors, designed to make it easier for women to enter and exit. They clucked at the rear seats, which flip up like theater seats to store shopping bags. They lampooned a rubber bumper that swathes the car, protecting it from parking-lot dings and scratches.

"It's not even a theory, it's nonsense," said Michael Ganal, the head of sales and marketing for BMW.

Robert A. Lutz, the vice chairman of General Motors, said the whole idea was sexist. "Most women would say: 'I send my husband out to do the shopping. Let him have the car with the rubber bumpers.'"

With this much vitriol, it is obvious that Volvo, the Swedish subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, is tweaking the folkways of the industry. The question is whether Volvo's car will prove to be a gimmick or a pioneering response to the growing influence of female consumers in the auto market.

(More: NYTimes.com / Business)

2004 © The New York Times Company.

Dan