Volvo Trucks and Other Swedish Gear

When you think “fashion” and “long-haul trucks,” you might think of. . .a flat-billed trucker’s hat. Not necessarily haute couture.

Asok George designs trucks. Big rigs. He is the chief exterior designer at Volvo Trucks. Listen: “Once we’ve chose a concept, we work with our colleagues from different parts of the company and with different competencies to make sure the product is designed in the best possible way. If it’s a truck, engineered to drive, and if it’s something else, then maybe it’s engineered to wear.”

Asok George

This is the Red Dot Award-winning Volvo FH. It is engineered to drive.

This is the Driver Performance Watch, designed by Patrik Palovaara, senior designer at the Volvo Truck design studio in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is engineered to wear.

Said Palovaara: “The design of the watch should make a clear statement. The Driver Performance watch is a watch that communicates pride. You’re proud of your truck and you’re proud of your watch, it’s the subject of conversation.”

The watch has FH design cues, like fonts from the truck’s gauges. It is also described as being “designed to give the watch a stance reminiscent of the new Volvo FH,” which seems to presume awfully big wrists.

Patrik Palovaara

Palovaara went on to say of the design of the watch as well as other features of the “Volvo Trucks Designer Gear-Travis,” with the Travis being a tribute to Travis Lofgren, a long-haul trucker, “The brief was to create a collection linked to the launch of our new FH. The challenge for us was to capture the feeling of the truck, not just copy the design, but find our own ways of interpreting it.”