Love Letter to the Volvo XC90

I’m not a car guy. Whatever exactly “being a car guy” means. The phrase “make and model” feels akin to casually discussing theoretical quantum physics. It’s intimidating, to say the least. In fact, I have a recurring nightmare where I’m the sole witness to some horrible crime and the frustrated FBI agents need me to do is describe the getaway vehicle and all I can offer up is a vague color and maybe how many doors it had.

But that all changed when I found out my wife was pregnant. Finally my life had true meaning and that meaning came in the form of the Volvo XC90, the greatest car invented by humans in the history of recorded time. As we were deciding on a new car for our new baby, there were only three things I cared about: safety, safety and safety. And we quickly learned that the XC90 was basically a safe room on wheels. I haven’t tried it yet, but you can drive an XC90 out of an airborne cargo plane through a hurricane and land in an active volcano and be totally fine. (Editor’s note: you probably would not be “totally fine” if you did this.) For me, this midsize luxury crossover SUV was as close to a Vin Diesel Tokyo-drifting hot rod as I’d ever get.

I became a walking advertisement for Volvo spouting off safety stats and offering up trivia unprompted at in-person get-togethers when in-person get-togethers were still a thing we did. (People, did you know that Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin invented the V-type three-point safety belt in 1959 and then Volvo made their patented design available to all their competitors for free just for the good of humanity and in turn saved millions of lives? Talk about some low-key superhero vibes!)

Anyway, driving an Impenetrable Fortress of Dadness is what sold me but Volvo’s techy innovations kept my obsession fresh: lane assist, 360-degree cameras for wizardly acts of parallel parking, a killer on board computer system. And luckily (for her) my daughter is equally infatuated with the Volvo and constantly having her toys driving little “Volvos” during playtime. Becoming a parent changes you in many, many ways and finally becoming a “car guy” was probably the single most surprising one. Well played, Volvo. Well played.

- Chris AKA “Pop Culture Dad”