Skoda: Its the new Volvo

Twenty years ago Volvos could be summed up in three words: safe, spacious and smug. The company sold big estate cars to antique dealers and middle-class families who felt good about taking their offspring around in the biggest, safest car they could find.

Today, every car is safe and there are lots of premium estate cars (until the 1980s BMW and Mercedes would not touch anything as common as an estate car). That makes Volvo's life harder, but now it is coming under threat from an unexpected quarter. The sort of people who used to buy Volvos are now buying Skodas.