Volvo Ends S60 Production

After providing the Volvo brand with a stable sales success for years, the vaunted S60 model has finally come to its end. After providing the Swedish manufacturer with a solid competitor in the mid-size luxury market, the S60’s long design term has finally come to completion with sliding sales and poor competitive performance. Stacking up against vastly newer 5-series’ and Audi’s A6, the S60 is simply no longer competitive. Once selling 100,000 S60s per year in the early years of the car’s production, 2008 saw just 6,200 S60s go to new customers. All told, 580,000 S60s were sold, with the last being a sapphire black example headed for Taiwan.

Shutting down the existing assembly line in Ghent, Belgium, the facility will spend a couple months of down time equipping the assembly line to prepare for production of the S60’s replacement, due next year.