According to Crains’s Chicago Business:

“James Bond has inspired sales of Aston Martins and BMWs with his super-cool onscreen wheels. Now a vampire who drives a Volvo is getting the attention of young drivers.

Since the release of “Twilight” in 2008, teens and young adults have been drawn to the Volvo C30, driven by the character Edward Cullen.

“All these teenagers were going crazy about the C30,” says Carmelo Scalzo, general manager of Volvo of Oak Park. “After the movie launched, we saw this spike in C30 sales. We didn’t know what had happened until we put two and two together.”

Now they are talking about the slick, bright silver car used in Twilight (Pel affectionately calls this this vehicle Herbie the Lovebug on speed). No one has any real data on the dark colored SUV-like vehicle used in New Moon. It will be interesting to see if this time next year the sales will have increased for that vehicle as well.

Even since it came out that Edward is not driving a light colored, silver, Volvo sports car in New Moon and Eclipse there’s been a passionate reaction among fans. It’s ranged from:

“Personally fine with the drama of “dark” grey versus “silver”; not a HUGE delimma in terms of continuity controversy. Afterall no one made a stink over Rosalie driving a Benz in the movie instead of the ostentacious BMW Edward and Bella discuss in the book. I’d actually welcome the change if they would ditch the stupid girly shortened S40 with the fin, and put Edward in a masculine Volvo like the S60 or new S80; turbo of course. Stephenie even provided pictures of her Cullens’ cars on her website years ago for her fans, why couldn’t they simply utilize her imput. Truly a small detail in the scheme of things, I’m much more interested in the plot of the movie reverting to a truer version of the book than in Hardwicke’s version, so really this would be one change i could agree with.”

to

“just saw the trailer. and it’s definitely not the same volvo as in twilight. this one is big and a LOT darker (i’d say it’s black, but hey, if the official term is dark grey..anyway no where near “shiny silver”)…so strange that they changed cars! I’m not nearly as upset about the change in color as i’m about the change in style though..cos this new volvo seriously just doesn’t look like anything edward would drive. it’s the same one my mom has, so i kinda put the middle-aged-suburbian-woman tag on it.”

So, check out the Ad Week article (the makes no difference to me people are probably on this wavelength)  on the issue and the reaction over at Jezebel magazine (the you killed the Batmobile people are probably on this wavelength) from an advertising pro. TY to Beth for pointing it out.

Regardless of where you stand on the movie issue, if you want the chance of winning a brand new car check it out here at What Edward Drives.

Vitamin Water also has wallpaper you can download

Volvo has its What Edward drives contest

This just in from Volvo:

Starting today, Twilight fans can visit www.WhatDrivesEdward.com and enter to win a pair of tickets to the New Moon world premiere in Los Angeles on Nov. 16 and an opportunity to meet members of the New Moon cast.

Starting Nov. 1 at www.WhatDrivesEdward.com, fans can play an interactive game to test their Twilight knowledge and solve a series of puzzles for a chance to win a shiny new Volvo XC60, just like Edward drives in New Moon.

In addition to the game, fans can watch trailers from the film, check out photos of Edward in the gallery and download New Moon-themed desktop wallpapers.