What can you do when you don't like the hidden side of the storage compartment's lid in the third row of your brand new SUV, but you can't add anything to the already finished tooling because of costs? You cut more out of it, in the shape of a cute spider, for the kids!
Dennis Nobelius is the Vice Persident of 'Vehicle Line 90' at Volvo Cars, which means he is responsible for all the larger cars the Swedish brand makes. He still reports to CEO Håkan Samuelsson, but when it comes to making quick decisions in connection with injection-moulded plastics in the cabin, there's no time to waste.
Dennis didn't like the pattern the team came up with, and since the XC90's third row was also engineered to keep the kids in one piece even after a heavy rear impact, he added this final touch while spending zero to keep them smiling too.
The XC90's third row is kind of a big deal. The seats are reenforced to take whatever makes it through the car's rear-end protection, and they also come with fixed headrests, seat belts with pyrotechnic pretensioners and extended curtain airbags as standard. Thanks to all that, this is what the third row looks like after it got hit by a car from behind traveling at 35 mph:
And yes, thanks to the clever packaging, you get seven seats in the 400 horsepower hybrid version too. And a pair of spiders.