Working Where Volvos Were Born – Part Four

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– Posted on November 17, 2024

Not a partial shot of a Volvo instrument cluster. The arrow indicates that the fuel filler is on the driver’s side. (Source: the web)

 

In last week’s post I noted that in the world of automotive product planning, if you achieve a .500 batting average, you’re doing well. Over the years, I surely had a few misses along with the occasional hits.

Fortunately, my product-planning strikeouts weren’t under the glare of the stadium lights with 50,000 people watching. (Source: https://stablediffusionweb.com)

 

One of the former seemed like a no-brainer at the time. During one of my many business trips to the city where Volvo was born, I met with one of my product planning colleagues. An architect in a former life, he worked primarily in automotive interior architecture, specifically controls and instrument panel displays.

At the time, Volvo was putting the finishing touches on a facelift for the 700-series sedans which would reach retailers for the 1991 model year. Referred to internally as the “backlift”, it included new C-pillars, a steeper rear window angle, revised rear quarter panels, a new trunk lid, and new tail lamps, among other details.

The “backlift” considerably cleaned up the P70 sedan’s rear quarters. If you look closely, you can even see some curves. (Source: Volvo Cars Design, p. 50)

 

(Permit me a not-so-short diversion here: The 700-series sedans had received their first slight facelift for the 1990 model year, with unframed large composite headlamps replacing the previous North American-market’s dual-quad rectangular lamps and their bright bezels. Tail lamp lenses were also slightly revised, as were the front and rear bumpers.

Which front-end design looks more appropriate for a late-80s/early 90s near-luxury four-door sedan? Yeah, I think so too. (Source: www.bringatrailer.com)

 

At the time, some of us felt those kronor would have been better spent on cleaning up the model’s overly busy C-pillar detailing, but we studiously avoided expressing that opinion to most of our Swedish colleagues, although some surely shared our point of view.

As it turned out, the 1990 revisions were a one-year-only change, since the sedans’ rear end was more heavily redesigned for ’91, as detailed above. I seriously doubt whether the cost of that ’90 effort was fully –or even partially– amortized, but that’s another story…

OK, now back to the point of this post. We regularly tried to convince those pragmatic and rational Swedes that it was important to integrate features that, ideally, would prompt a potential customer on the showroom floor to think: “If Volvo was thoughtful enough to engineer that clever little (fill in the blank here) feature, just think of how carefully the rest of the car must have been engineered. This would be a smart purchase. Yes, I’ll buy one.”

If added early enough in the design/engineering process, many such small features could be added at little or no additional cost. I’ll call one of these the “fuel gauge arrow”, that small triangular icon that began to appear on instrument–panel fuel gauges at about that time. Pointing to the side of the car where the fuel filler was located, the arrow would be a clever reminder so that, at a glance, a driver approaching a gas pump island would instantly know (or remember) how to correctly pull up to the pumps.

I pointed out that in the U.S., we enjoyed the repeat business of many customers, many of whom had more than one Volvo in their family fleet. Perhaps Dad’s daily driver was a new 740 sedan, maybe even a Turbo, so that his daily commute, if still a chore, could at least be somewhat more pleasant. And maybe his older, faithful 240 would have passed to his wife, so that she would be safely cocooned in Swedish steel during her daily errand-running. And perhaps from time to time, they switched cars because one or another of their Volvos just then happened to be the one at the end of their suburban driveway. And that Volvo might one day be a bit low on fuel…

Not a partial shot of a Volvo instrument cluster. The arrow indicates that the fuel filler is on the passenger’s side. (Source: https://www.quora.com, Paul Montgomery)

 

…and that would be when that little fuel gauge arrow would be worth its weight in gold. Mom or Dad could confidently approach the gas station without a second thought, drive right up to the pump, and fill up without stopping on the wrong side of the island and then circling around in embarrassment, ashamed that the other drivers might be silently thinking “Huh, those Volvo drivers – guess they really aren’t so smart after all.”

As my pièce de résistance, I then reached into my briefcase and presented photos of two Volvo sedans, a 240 and a 740, clearly showing the fuel filler doors on opposite sides of the cars –the 240’s on the passenger’s side and the 740’s on the driver’s side.

The 240’s fuel door was certainly well-protected from a potential driver’s-side sideswipe… (Source: www.bringatrailer.com)

 

Was the location of the 240’s fuel door a (modified) carryover from the early Volvo 140, which also had its fuel door on the passenger’s side (which had been the driver’s side in Sweden, until September 3rd, 1967, when, overnight, the country switched to driving on the right side of the road)?

… but moving the fuel filler to the left side made it easier to “keep to the right” at a pump island and be perfectly positioned to fill your Volvo’s tank. (Source: www.bringatrailer.com)

 

And was the switch to the 740’s left-rear fender location a belated recognition that since the vast majority of Volvo’s sales were in ‘driving on the right’ markets, in which motorists would naturally approach a gas station island on the right?

Whatever the rationale, despite what I thought was a logical, reasoned approach in proposing this design change, Volvo fuel gauges then remained un-arrowed, a failure I’m reminded of every time I slide behind the wheel of one of the modern “arrow-equipped” vehicles in our own family fleet.

As a postscript, most sources agree that the fuel gauge arrow was conceived by a Ford designer who needed gasoline on a rainy day in Dearborn. According to an account published in Design News (October 8, 2010, by Senior Editor Dan Carney), the story unfolds as follows:

“The fuel gauge pointer solution was first imagined on April 17, 1986, by Ford interior trim designer Jim Moylan, after he experienced frustration locating the filler while driving a company car.

Moylan described his epiphany on an Oct. 8, 2018 podcast episode, saying: “I had to go to a meeting in another building on a rainy day. When I went to get the pool car, I started it and noticed the gas gauge was empty,” he said. “I pulled up to the gas pump on the wrong side, so I had to move it.”

After a soaking in the rain, and sitting through a meeting in wet clothes, Moylan took action. “I got back to my office after the meeting, and without even taking my coat off, I sat down and started writing the first draft of this proposal. I typed it up and turned it in and forgot completely about it.”

Moylan’s memo to the boss read: “The indicator or symbol I have in mind would be located near the fuel gauge and simply describe to the driver on which side of the vehicle the fuel fill door is located.”

And the gas gauge arrow was born. Moylan may have forgotten about it, but the boss did not. On Nov. 18, 1986, Ford director of interior design, R. F. Zokas, replied, informing Moylan that the company would apply the indicator arrows to its 1989 model year cars that were then under development.”

I’d say that despite his ruined suit, Jim Moylan batted 1.000 that day…

(Featured image from https://slate.com, Mark Vanhoenacker)