It was never about money or even class, one must understand - more to do to with culture, really, the aspirations of people like oneself. That's what makes this global capitalism business so truly abominable, the power to force the union of a couple so . . . well . . . unsuited.

Separating the old money from the new used to be simple: by their cars shall ye know them. Look through the back window of a Volvo and you would most likely see a pair of children's ballet shoes. Glance into a Ford and you might see furry dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

For the more sluggish of mind, the two companies made it really easy. Volvo sponsored the World Cup. Of dressage. Ford sponsored the World Ka Rally Cup.

Even in the 1970s everybody knew where they stood. The Ford Capri was like the young John McEnroe - brash, garish, unpredictable, attention-grabbing and not really geared towards the family market. The Volvo saloon was Bjorn Borg - chunky, steady, reliable and suitable for children.

By the 1980s, the messages were even clearer. A Volvo was a lifestyle choice. Other cars - Fords - had optional extras like power brakes and sound systems; with Volvos came a host of free accessories such as a labrador, green wellington boots and a predilection for herbal tea.

Not only did Volvo drivers have that extra touch of understated, in-tune-with-nature class; such was their concern for road safety, they had a certain dreary moral edge too. To mix Barthes's semiotics and Freud's psychoanalysis, these people were the first proponents of car safe sex.

By the 1990s, low-brow riff-raff had begun telling cruel jokes about Volvo drivers. They were boring suburbanites, the drones of the upper middle-classes; sensitive dads and their jolly, Stepford wives on a conveyer belt to bourgeois Valhalla.

The Good Safety Citizen element of owning a Volvo also came under attack, in tales suggesting that the safer Volvo drivers felt inside their own steel-framed boxes, the more inclined they were to risk a crash, barging ahead at junctions where other cars might slow. This week's deal, though, still had the power to culture-shock. It was hard not to see it all as a corporate onte Bronte novel.

Here was an ageing, aristocratic, Scandinavian beauty, part of the social whirl for many years, who suddenly began to feel lonely. Perhaps, she thought, she should find a partner - a suitable one, of course.

In 1993, she succumbed to the charms and good looks of a certain Frenchman, a Count Renault. The pair announced their engagement and threw a wonderful party. They exchanged shares and everyone said it was a merger made in heaven, but she had grown used to her independence and didn't like the way the Frenchman bossed her about.

After a few months - in truth before the union was consummated - she had the marriage annulled. There were many other suitors. Last year, she was seen dancing gaily at parties with a German, Doctor Volkswagen. Earlier this month she received a generous proposal of marriage from an Italian prince, Fiat of Turin, but having already experienced bad luck with Latin types, spurned him.

Then came the unpretentious New World patrician, Mr Ford. He could not promise her social standing - but she had this already. He could not offer much in the way of panache, but style had never been her obsession.

What he offered was rather a lot of money and a promise of independence. It was "a difficult emotional decision to take", said Volvo's chief executive, Leif Johanssen, pocketing the SKr50 billion (£5.7 billion). Jacques Nasser, chief executive of Ford, promised to maintain "the Swedishness of Volvo".

So where does this leave all the Volvo owners? Must they now admit that they really own a Ford and paint a go-faster stripe along the side of the car? Are there no certainties left in the world?

Apparently not in the world of automobiles. Industry insiders are convinced that after last year's $36 billion (£32 billion) mega-merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler, the pressure will grow on medium-sized car manufacturers to marry. Keep an eye on Renault, Peugeot, Fiat, Mitsubishi and BMW, they say.

Time to get out and buy a pair of furry dice.