New Chinese owners will free Volvo's inner tiger

If you were going to compare car brands with animals, which do you reckon is most like a tiger? Ferrari? Lamborghini? Porsche? Perhaps a bit of all three but not, surely, Volvo, the safety conscious Swedish maker of premium saloons, estates and SUVs.

But a tiger in need of freedom is how the boss of Chinese company Geely, which has just bought the company from Ford for $1.8 billion, sees this worthy middle class make.

"A tiger belongs to the forest. It belongs to the wild world and not confined in a zoo. We need to liberate this tiger," said Li Shufu of his company's new acquisition.