It’s often said that trends work in 20-year cycles, and one of the hottest throwback aesthetics right now is translucent tech. See-through gadgets were all the rage in the early 2000s, yet this style never quite translated into cars as cabins grew more and more gadget-laden. Of course, there are notable exceptions to everything, and in this case, it’s because Volvo actually tried to make it happen.
Flashback to 2005: Volvo has revealed the first V50, the compact wagon counterpart to the second-generation S40 sedan. Unsurprisingly, they’re extraordinarily similar cars ahead of the B-pillar, and that extends to the dashboard design. Both cars placed all of their stereo and climate controls on a waterfall-style console that almost looked like a giant floating VCR remote. It was striking, and while most of these consoles were finished in aluminum on North American cars (as shown below), some weren’t.
Over the course of production, you could option a burled wood finish if you craved traditionalism, which made the console look like an anachronism. Europeans had it better when it came to wood, with a Nordic Oak console that looked like a piece of IKEA furniture in all the best ways. Base models in many markets came with a dark glossy finish dubbed Bauxite, but one waterfall console finish stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Officially dubbed “Iced Aqua,” this translucent trim explicitly borrowed inspiration from translucent tech, such as cell phones and video game peripherals. As Volvo described this trim, “It creates a high-tech impression, as the electronics and technology partly can be seen through it.” Indeed, the look is rather striking, one that briefly rode the coattails of tech trends at the time, and is now thoroughly nostalgic.
However, because translucent tech was almost on its way out in 2005, Iced Aqua trim found few buyers. Never mind that you could add it to your V50 or S40 for $101.15, the forums at the time definitely didn’t appreciate what Volvo was going for here. A quick perusal of Swedespeed forum posts from 2006 show readers absolutely roasting the Iced Aqua trim, a pretty good explanation for why this trim option never really caught on in America.
Still, nearly 20 years can do a whole lot for tastes, and in the context of late 2024, translucent tech is cool again. The kids pine for crystal Xboxes, see-through Swatches, clear-shelled phones, G3 iMacs, and any clear-look gadgets that exude Y2K futurism. The P1 Volvo Iced Aqua trim is primed for a comeback, and if you look around, you can find this trim trading second-hand.
For instance, Swedish Volvo parts retailer Genuine Classic Parts lists an Iced Aqua waterfall for a C70 for less than $100. Judging by how Volvo’s own parts catalog claims this exact part fits a 2005 V50, it’s likely it also fits more P1 platform cars.
Would it be crazy to buy a V50, or an S40, or a C70, or a C30 in the hopes of finding a piece of translucent trim that fits? Perhaps, but love makes us do crazy things. For now, we celebrate that Iced Aqua trim existed at all. It was a brief moment of glorious lunacy from a typically reserved manufacturer, and one hell of a statement piece.
(Photo credits: Volvo, Swedespeed, Genuine Classic Parts)
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I wish I still had my translucent pager.
Translucid plastic in eletronics is where we peaked as society.
I really wish Volvo could have gone juuuuust a little further and made a transmission shroud in matching materials. On the other trims it’s not so noticeable but on what otherwise is super cool and translucent that big grey swath of real estate surrounded by cool material is just so stark and obviously bad.
I love the P1 platform Volvo’s.
They got boring after Saab died and they didn’t have anyone in Sweden to keep them honest about trying to make fun cars!
In fairness, they also got sold by Ford not long after saab got the ax by gm, but they also still offer the Polestar tuning on most of their models, so they’re not entirely devoid of “fun”.
I’m slightly more partial to the nautical chart trim panels, to the point it’s disappointing they didn’t do a V50 Ocean Race.
https://www.norcorp.com/hs-fs/hub/60349/file-29895544-jpg/images/volvo-c30-nautical-aluminum-center-stack-trim.jpg
Ohhhh that’s what those were!
Man, seeing this just makes me sadder about current Volvo center stacks. They make really compelling vehicles, but making every function stuck behind a touchscreen that’s noticeably laggy from the factory just makes them a no-go for me.
I love something so staid as an aughts Volvo, rocking a UI reminiscent of the Atomic Purple N64 controller I got for Christmas in 1998.
I love it, and I want it, and I don’t care if it’s stupid.
I mean, these are the same people that were building the S60/V70 R at the same time with borderline orange seats, shiny blue gauges, and the spaceball shifter.
Very good point. In retrospect this may have been Volvo’s strangest era.
And cramming Yamaha V8s in their biggest vehicles…
Principal Skinner was right about the children.
I wish they would have evolved the ‘waterfall’ center stack to use OLED for a flowing center screen. But it is now 2 generations ago and big and upfront screens a la Tesla. when I think the lightness of the waterfall is needed once again. I really want a way to put buttons back within hands reach and this styling does is beautifully.
Not as fun looking as the Game Boy Color
Phooey I want that but the part only fits the later models- I will stick with looking for the Nordic Oak interior
It took a couple years of looking to assemble the Nordic Oak pieces for my V50 at a semi-reasonable price, but once I swapped them in, it was totally worth it.
Only fits the later models? I’d imagine it would fit all of them from 2004 to 2012. If anything, I’d expect it to not ‘fit’ the later ones, in that the later ones had the trim surround for the center console/armrest as well– not sure that piece was available in iced aqua.
But yes, get the Nordic Light Oak. I put it in my C30, and it was wonderful. I wish I could do something like that with my GR Yaris.
I was going to swap the console in my pre-facelift somebody said it was easy then I saw you had to reweld the handbrake location- nope mine is a manual and the cupholders become useless
On the C30, at least, the waterfall never changed. But, the C30 came to market a little later than some of the other P1s, IIRC.
Another really nice interior modification was to replace the gauge face plate with that from a C70. Pretty easy to do, although it could be a pain to get the needles properly aligned on reinstallation.
Iced Aqua with a Spaceball shifter would be primo
P1 cars never got a spaceball
Stylistically I’m fine with it, but it looks shiny which means it’s going to be a glare magnet, and I’m increasingly of the opinion that shiny surfaces have no place in a car interior. I’ve now owned three vehicles that had chrome trim somewhere in the interior, and every single one of them is obnoxious to drive if the sun is at the wrong angle. Some strategically placed plasti-dip can fix a lot of this, but it’s a pain to have to remove the trim to dip it.
Just an FYI to anyone considering purchasing a model with that waterfall center stack: the climate controls are integrated into the same system that handles music. This makes it incredibly difficult and expensive to retrofit CarPlay. Unlike the Germans at the time, the screen is a simple mono LCD, so it isn’t possible to hijack it to display a modern infotainment interface, and there isn’t enough room to replace the screen without running into the buttons below.
For some people, this doesn’t matter, but as someone who adores CarPlay and retrofits it to every car I buy, it basically rules out a lot of these cars.
There’s a company over here in the UK now supporting replacing the headunit with a single DIN unit. Ok you’ll lose the display for the climate control but it means that CarPlay with one of those floating screen or fold out units is an option now. P/N is CTKVL11 for non-amplified cars and CTKVL05 with amp.
Interesting, but it looks like those are single DIN only. There are single DIN CarPlay head units out there, but they are ugly (imho) and small, plus I don’t know if they’d fit. It also seems like losing the climate control display would be annoying at best. Still, it’s nice that there is something out there!
The fact that it wasn’t a factory option on American-spec models likely limited it some, brochures show aluminum or wood tone as factory with “translucent interior trim” as an accessory. Volvo’s image was evolving but I don’t think to the extent that such a specific buyer would say “can you actually rip apart my interior and put that in?” Aluminum trim already seemed fresh compared to the usual “plastic or wood” that had been the automotive norm, so most were probably happy with that.
Maybe wilder was Saturn attempting changeable roof rails and dash trim on the ION: blue bubbles, steel, leapord print, or carbon fiber. I know some cars shipped with silver rails that first year but not sure if anyone actually bought bubble or leapord print trim…
I just showed a house last nite with a 1990’s purple translucent SHARP microwave on the kitchen counter – again, inspired by those colorful 1990’s Macs.
It was a very confusing object for my buyers.
The perfect car for Captain Boday (inside joke)
Reminds me of a those colourful CRT-based iMacs.
It makes it feel both fun and dated/obsolete at the same time.
Of course this reminds me of the N64 purple see-thru controller that we fought over in my house growing up.
Grape… Something. I think all the translucent ones were fruits, right? I had the translucent blue Game Boy Advance, too. I wouldn’t want everything to be like that, but I didn’t hate it then and still don’t now. I’ve always loved things seemingly or actually sealed or trapped in resin, just out of reach. It’s the same feeling that makes me want to play and explore the backgrounds of fighting games, or go explore the woods in Maple Valley.
It was Atomic Purple! I had an N64 controller, and a Game Boy Color in Atomic Purple.
Careful, you might give Jaguar an idea.
Jaguar needs some ideas.
Some years of the Ford Thunderbird has a clear dash over the speedometer. You could see the speedometer markings from outside the car looking through the windshield.
There’s something about an Iced Aqua man.
Or an Aqua Vulva Woman.
Any woman with an aqua vulva should make an appointment with her gynecologist immediately!
I never saw the clear one, but this was such a good era for Volvo design, in general. The S80 and S60 were very handsome cars, and you also had the C70 Coupe make it into 2002, and then the later C30, which was just fantastic
I do wonder how the translucent plastic holds up to UV light over time, I’ve seen electronics turn yellow or milky, maybe they did something to it to account for being in a car interior