That a place name gives a name to a car model is a common practice among manufacturers. The best example of all is Seat. The Spanish company has a variety of models that are named after cities and emblematic places, such as Ibiza, León, Toledo and the Alhambra, among others. However, when a car gives its name to a place, the situation becomes remarkably unique, as occurs in the United States with an island known by the name of Volvo.
Located in Ottawa, in the state of Illinois, Volvo Island is named in honor of a car from the Swedish brand. If it is already an exceptional fact, the reason that led to naming this promontory with the brand name of the Scandinavian vehicle manufacturer is even more so.
The story behind this curious name dates back to January 2012. As is often the case with many extravagant situations, everything began in the most unexpected way. Scott Mann, a resident of the quiet town of Ottawa, a city of just 20,000 inhabitants, devised a fun challenge to promote his two mechanical workshops. The man couldn’t think of anything else but to take a Volvo S80 to the island as a marketing strategy and he proposed a contest to see who could discover how the car had gotten there.
To carry out his plan, Mann did not have it as complicated as it seems. Before depositing the car on the small surface of land where it rests, the island did not exist as such, so he used a crane car to drag the Volvo to the place. But once he left the vehicle there he had to come up with the second part of the plan: use an excavator to remove the earth that connected the small island, where the car now rests, with the rest of the peninsula.
What was presumed to be an advertising campaign for his workshops with enormous impact came to nothing. The contest for participants to discover how the Volvo had gotten to that small piece of land in the middle of a flooded old mine never materialized. Mann put the idea out of his head when he considered the danger of having the contestants go into the water in search of clues to the prize.
The car is not far from the tip of the peninsula. However, the lake, which at first appears shallow, reaches a depth of almost 12 meters in its deepest part.
According to the satellite images that can be seen through Google Maps, the car is in good condition. The Volvo Island, for its part, is racking up positive reviews, as it has a rating of 4.9 out of 5 after more than 200 reviews. “Majestic”, “a first-class tourist attraction” or “rich in history” are some comments that users have left.
In addition to scrapping the contest idea, Scott Mann also abandoned the idea of ??creating a beach around the Volvo and turning the site into an advertising space for his business. There is no doubt that this mechanic has no shortage of ideas, so he is sure to find ingenious solutions to repair the most complicated breakdowns that may arise in his workshop.