Volvo C70

With its exclusive fully-retractable three-piece hardtop, the C70, an offshoot of Volvo’s cooperation with Pininfarina, doubles as either coupe or convertible.

This modern coupe is the first model developed and produced by Pininfarina Sverige AB, the joint-venture between Pininfarina (60%) and Volvo Car Corporation (40%). The new Volvo C70 started to roll off the production lines of the Uddevalla, Sweden plant at the end of 2005. Pininfarina Sverige is our first joint venture with a auto-maker. An ideal form of cooperation for Pininfarina as both companies have an unerring passion for design and unmatched know-how acquired during many years of business. The C70 will be the first car built by Pininfarina on the customer’s premises in another country.
Starting from the design defined by Volvo, Pininfarina first of all carried out all the engineering phases at its Cambiano plant (Turin, Italy) with an almost 100-strong team dedicated for close on three years to product and process engineering, followed by the actual production phase at the Uddevalla plant in Sweden.
With its exclusive, new-generation, three-part fully-retractable hard-top, the new Volvo C70 offers customers two cars in one: simply touch a button and the C70 transforms in less than 30 seconds from a sporting coupe into an equally elegant convertible and vice versa.
Prior to production, Pininfarina also played a major role in converting the plant from the old “satellite” type system to the conventional assembly line. The C70 will be sold on markets all over the world, in particular in the USA which is expected to absorb more than 50% of total volumes planned.
The car is produced using state-of the- art technologies such as laser welding of the body and we also registered 4 major patents: energy absorbing blocks, high suv impact protection, hydroformed A-pillar, door crash beam engagement system.
As highlighted in the international press following its driving presentation in Dubai, the vehicle boasts a highly advanced structure: the chassis features a network of bars which contribute to increase safety standards, more than doubling torsional rigidity compared with the previous Volvo model.
Great attention has been paid to the interior which, despite the hard top, can seat four adult passengers in complete comfort.

The Uddevalla plant, located on the shores of the North Sea just a few kilometers from Goteborg, has a long and complex history behind it.

Set up after the war to build ships, it started to construct cars only in 1996. Pininfarina contributed to complete the conversion of the “satellite” type system used previously to the assembly line approach.
Today, it has a total surface area of more than 490,000 sq. m of which 95,300 sq. m of buildings, with more than 800 employees and a production capacity of 20,000 vehicles a year. T

The various production phases of the C70 are carried out at Uddevalla: assembly and painting of the body and roof; installation of the mechanicals and trimming of the cabin; tests on the finished vehicle on an in-house track and release of the vehicle ready for delivery to the customer. The standard tooling of assembly line production is used, suitably adapted to the plant and with wide-scale use of laser welding when constructing the bodyshell. Carry-over components are furnished by the Ghent Belgium plant; Volvo Car and Body Components, around 400 km from Uddevalla, furnishes bodyin- white parts and external panels; other minor suppliers operate in other European countries. Pininfarina Sverige is responsible for final quality.