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Ex-Volvo boss Stefan Jacoby to head GM's international operations

He was too talented not to surface somewhere, we just didn't know where and when. Nine months ago, Stefan Jacoby stepped down from his post as Volvo CEO, a move that caught many off guard. At the time, the separation was called "amicable," but word is that the strong-willed executive clashed with owners Geely and the automaker's board.
Jacoby will have a new set of challenges on his hands, as he has just been named Executive Vice President Consolidated International Operations for General Motors. That means the Hannover-born Jacoby will head up the company's operations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, where he will be responsible for over 100 countries and territories. Jacoby succeeds Tim Lee, who has been named chairman of GM China. Lee will also retain his post as Executive Vice President Global Manufacturing.
Jacoby's dealings with Geely should help him in his Asian market duties, but he also counts time as the head of Volkswagen of China on his resume, so he's very well-versed in the market's peculiarities.

These are the top luxury cars bought by people entering the segment for the first time

Let's say you just got a big promotion at work or the kids are moving out of the house, and you finally have some extra money. You decide to blow it all at once and treat yourself by upgrading your ride. Naturally, you look to a luxury automaker. What do you choose?
Models like the Audi A3 and Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class may be tailor-made to introduce buyers to the premium segment, but a new study finds that they don't garner the highest rates of non-luxury customer conquests. It turns out that a Volvo leads among folks moving up to a premium brand, and it isn't even one that's made anymore, at that.
A recent study by Polk and IHS Automotive looked at what models had the highest rates of buyers upgrading from a non-luxury segment. The information comes from its new vehicle registration data through April 2014. All ten top models boasted conquest rates of over 50 percent, but the Volvo C70 led the field with 68.01 percent of its customers coming from non-premium brands.

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Volvo V90

Volvo's "Brick Era" of squared-off rear-wheel-drive machines lasted from the debut of the 144 in 1966 all the way through the 900 Series cars of the 1990s, with the wildly successful 240 being the most iconic of the breed on our shores. The final chapter of the Swedish Brick saga came in the 1997 and 1998 model years, when the 960 sedan and wagon were rebadged as the S90 and V90, respectively. Here's one of those cars, a refrigerator-colored (and refrigerator-shaped) V90 wagon that got forcibly retired after a crash in Northern California. Volvo revived the V90 name in 2016, and you can buy a new V90 right now if you so choose. Today's Junkyard Gem, however, is the culmination of four decades of improvement to the original 140 design (itself based on much of the Amazon's chassis features and sharing plenty of components with the 1940s-era PV Series cars), while the current V90 comes straight out of the 21st century. I've been going out of my way to document just about every discarded 140 and 240 wagon I find, with some 740s and 940s mixed in. Many Volvo longroof owners still maintain a fanatical devotion to the rear-wheel-drive bricks, and I've found some of these cars in junkyards with impressively high final odometer readings. The fuel-efficiency and interior-space limitations of the old-timey brick design kept 960 sales lower than those of their predecessors, though, and I haven't met any 960 owners who share the level of devotion that 145 and 245 owners lavish on their cars. This car just squeaked past 150,000 miles during its 24 years on the road. The body and interior look to have been in very nice condition, showing that meticulous owners took good care of this car throughout its life, but then it got T-boned on the right side. This sort of damage isn't worth fixing on a quarter-century-old European wagon, and so here it sits. This engine compartment looks very similar to that of the old 240, though this modern 3.0-liter, DOHC straight-six and its 181 horses runs counter to the super-sensible spirit of most of those 1970s Goteborg bricks. The 960 was far more plush than its ancestors, and priced accordingly. In 1997, this car's list price started at $35,850 (about $60,660 in 2021 dollars). By comparison, a new 1975 245 wagon had an MSRP of $5,795 (about $29,940 today).