km : Cultural and Events News

It's good to be king, or in this case, princess. The marriage of Princess Victoria of Sweden to Daniel Westling is happening this week and in case you hadn't just assumed this already, it's kind of a big deal. Guests from around the world--many of them royalty themselves--will be arriving over the coming days and will need to be escorted to and from airports as well as between the various parts of the three-day celebration. That's no small task, so the Royal Court went to the one domestic car company that hasn't been on the brink of survival for months to ask for a bit of help. As a result, the Court will lease an entire fleet of custom-made, matching Ice White S80s. Volvo's own press release says that 85 will be made, but the embroidered seat pictured below reads "No. 1/100" and we'd like to assume the car itself doesn't have a typo.

The fleet doesn't just consist of S80s, however, as it also includes a set of V70 wagons that provide a bit more space for guests who don't know how to pack lightly. Along with matching paint and interior colors, each car gets a special set of badges on the front fenders with the royal crown emblem and "2010" underneath the crown commemorating the year of the marriage. The same emblem is embroidered in each car's headrests, with individual car numbering below them. Additionally, the emblem and design motif are carried down to specially-made sill plates at each door.

To ensure that Sweden maintains its reputation for being a forward-thinking, earth-friendly nation, the Royal Court ordered each of the cars with Volvo's DRIVe powertrain, meaning each has a small-displacement diesel and emits less than 120 grams per kilometer of carbon dioxide emissions. When the wedding is over, each of the cars will be sold off in the Swedish market, where they'll surely go on to become collector's items. Volvo estimates the wedding will be watched by 500 million TV viewers and that 2000-3000 journalists will be on hand reporting. And if every single guest is hopping out of a white Volvo, that's some excellent press that should make the extra details that went into these cars well worth it.

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