At Volvo the last month for the current year production is May. Starting in June its on to the next year. Its been that way for at least 20 years over there.






Mike
'95 850T (5/95)

At least as far back as the 50's Detroit always shut down production of the prior model sometime in the summer for vacation shut down and retooling. You could only buy what had been built before the shutdown until the "new" model was released for sale in late Sept. or Oct., and the new model was always sold as the next calender year's model (built in Sept. 65, sold as a '66). Europe followwed a similar schedule. Nothing new about this. Even very early (spring?)introductions in the "prior" calendar year are not particularly new, although the practice seems to be getting more use recently, for other reasons.
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Mike Sullivan ('95 855T (88k), '98 V70XC (92k), '95 855 NA (135k). Past Volvo's: '85 744 (256k), '86 245 (165k), '86 245 (195k), '88 745 (208k), '91 745 (196k), '93 965 (147k) .

Hey Juan P, didnt you used to have a 93 850, I am driving a saab 9-5 now
sold both the volvos, just test drove a 03 v7 xc, thinking about a s60 r
just thought I lurk the 850 site

GM just announced the 2007 model year for sale this month for Suburban/Tahoe trucks. Seems the 2006 line wasn't selling enough, or they are having troubles meeting CAFE standards again.

The only frustrating thing with Volvo is they will run out of parts during the model year and upgrade to new parts. That is why my V70 has a 70K Tbelt and others have a 105K Tbelt. Same for the brake pads. It is hard to order parts online when they need to know the serial number, because nnnnn+1 means newer design.

Klaus
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(V♂LV♂s 1975 164, 1995 854T, 1998 V70R)

mainly cos they make em before they sell em!

sounds trite but to a degree its true....

the build year is a pretty movable feast, dont forget some other countries have registration changes in mid year eriods and they want new model out for hte new reg (used to be august in the UK for example).

it also partly becasue it takes a while to retool a line so they wil build a load, park em up to cover demand then retool and start production so they pick convenient time of year...

you will also find 'weird' cars with bits that were only on earlier models (or later) officially jsut due to the fact that stock bins get used out so a new part may be used (they aint going to order in load of the old ones) or because they had x thousand parts left...)

also dont forget same car introduced in different territorys at different dates..

me i would rather have the 95 and avoid the obdII misery but each to his own...