Drink, hard drugs and a conviction for weapons possession - what Volvo driver can't list these on his or her CV!
Thinking of typical customers of the safety-conscious Swedes, troubled actor Robert Downey Jr doesn't spring to mind. Instead you think soft-spoken middle class, more concerned with good manners than good motors, tending the garden, punctual, and turning down more than two glasses of sherry at parties for fear of getting tipsy. Their strongest rebuke is to tut-tut smokers.Yet Volvo, desperate to shed this reputation, wants to walk on the wild side. It's been chasing the bad-boy image for some time, first with racy performance derivatives, and now with sensual styling.
For its new entry-level range, Volvo's campaign centres on a "docu-mercial", loosely based on The Blairwitch Project - in a small Swedish town 32 families buy the new S40 on the same day (hardly mysterious, given Swedish loyalty to home produce). Now Downey has been enrolled for a short film format commercial for the V50 estate - or sportswagon as Volvo's new street-cred homies would prefer it to be known. Right on.
Boxy Volvo looks were long seen as the epitome of safe motoring. Yet, the safety bug has been caught by competitors, so Volvo needs to be sexy as well as safe.
Surprisingly for Swedes, sexy didn't come easily. Enter designer Peter Horbury, who took the 740 breeze-block and gave us the curvaceous S80. Since then we've had a fancy coupé and more recently a concept designed specifically for women that didn't involve three-foot thick bumpers and 55 airbags.
The stylised design has now made its way down to the entry-level. The result: a saloon that looks like a shrunken S60, and an estate that feels more like a downsized V70.
When you miniaturise a model, a price must be paid in space terms. With both models, the nose looks slightly too short, and the saloon's long tapering roofline means rear-seat passengers must sacrifice headroom to styling.
No such price is paid by those who opt for the V50. The look is in keeping with the premium-end competition - it could challenge the Alfa Romeo 156 Sportswagon or even the Audi A4 Avant for eyecatching appeal.
Measurements reveal the S50 is equal to most other premium players in luggage space, bar the more expensive Honda Accord or mainstream estates like the Toyota Avensis.
Regular boot space is less than either BMW or Audi, but it's superior to the Alfa Romeo 156 Sportswagon and beats all but the BMW when rear seats are folded down.
The new V50 is also larger and wider than the old version though a little shorter, sitting as it does on the new Ford Focus platform.That's not all that comes from Ford - the 2-litre diesel in our test car was also from the parent company, though built in conjunction with Peugeot-Citroën PSA.
Having recently driven this engine in its French guise, we were particularly taken by its eager performance in lower gears when matched with Focus floorplan. It's got bags of torque - or pulling power - and revs into action without too much encouragement, particularly as all that low-rev power is accessible through a six-speed gearbox. We managed an average 35.4 mpg, impressive even for diesel figures on our regular test route.
The figures show, in performance terms, it's a match for most of its counterparts, with a 0-62 mph under 10 seconds - not quite supercar, but worthy of praise. However, it's still not as refined as some of executive counterparts, specifically the new 2.2-litre unit from Honda, which for us is the oil-burning benchmark in its class. It's also quite noisy when idling.
The Focus platform yet again impresses - it's now in three models, suggesting Ford has more than enough feedback to make the upcoming Focus a class leader.
Handling and comfort are on a par with competitors, but it's inside that we were most taken by the V50. Interior styling and quality suggests a car of a much higher class. Seating offers ample legroom for average-sized occupants, though longer legs may be a little cramped in the back.
Our test car was the SE model, with cruise control as standard - increasingly our favourite gadget for long motorway journeys.
It came as a surprise to find the V50 has six airbags compared to the Peugeot 407 with seven or the Toyota Avensis with nine. Air-conditioning emitted a steady hum even at low settings.
Volvo has always wanted its entry models to mix it with the BMW 3-series and Audi A4. For us the S40 saloon doesn't quite pass muster, but the V50 is more up to the challenge against equivalent estate versions, particularly given its relatively competitive pricing against German counterparts.
As for Robert Downey Jr, for all his bad-boy antics he's desperately trying to clean up his act. With the Volvo crowd he'll find safety and comfort. For the Swedes he may offer a taste of the wilder side of life.
