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Shortly after the XC90 debuted in 2002, Volvo organized several test drive events, where quite a few Volvo fans came out to see and drive the new SUV's on cone slalom courses to experience the advanced Dynamic Stability Traction Control (DSTC). One of the courses was a special slalom, where a professional driver would take a carload of folks, accelerate to a high speed, take his foot off the brake and gas, and crank the wheel hard one direction, then the other (simulating avoiding an object in the road). Any other tall vehicle would have certainly become unstable and possibly lost control or even rolled over, but the Volvo's DSTC took over and kept the SUV in perfect form without a hint of trouble. This course was dubbed the "Moose Avoidance Test". Then for the 2004 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the yellow/blue moose profile emblem at right appeared on a a red concept XC90. Obviously, it was a hit. Volvo's moose emblem for their 2005 XC90 V8 debute was the black one (yellow fender).

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In essence, Volvo and Saab are microcosms of Swedish society itself.

"Safety is in our blood; it's built into the walls here, it isn't just talk," says Volvo's Johnny Korner, noting that Volvo's founders Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson penned the following mission statement back in 1927: "Cars are driven by people. The guiding philosophy behind everything we make at Volvo, therefore is - and must remain - safety."

Putting safety first means going above and beyond legal crash-test requirements. Both Saab and Volvo perform more and stricter in-house crash tests than are required by law and have long histories of studying real-world accidents. Saab, for instance, has gathered information from more than 5,000 road accidents involving Saabs, and makes safety improvements according to what it learns.

Information gleaned from real-life accidents led to such innovations as the Saab Active Head Restraint, Volvo's rear-facing child safety seat, and even Saab's placement of the ignition key in the center console (to prevent driver knee injuries in head-on collisions).

The automakers also put their cars through "moose avoidance" and "moose crash" tests to determine how well their cars and passengers will fare in an encounter with an 836-pound mammal."