SONY flew in the face of the conventional rules of marketing back in 1979 with the introduction of the Walkman personal stereo.

The brainchild of company founder Masaru Ibuka, the Walkman created a market sector where none had existed, despite being initially rejected by sceptical Sony sales staff.

Volvo hopes to do a similar thing here in the UK with the latest S40, offering a premium compact saloon with genuine appeal.

In terms of rivals, probably the closest thing you could pitch against this new, edgier, more dynamic S40 is Volkswagen’s Bora, a car which has always rather under-achieved in the UK.

Not that the lack of prior sales success for cars of this kind has put off Henrik Otto, Volvo’s Head of Design. He may sound like a Bond villain but this determined Swede has his own plans for global domination and none involve death rays from space or poison gases.

He notes that if you want to be innovative, there’s little point in looking at what the competition is doing. You will, he reckons, be far more productive looking at what they’re not doing. The Volvo S40’s interior pays testament to his claims.

All too often, we hear about innovations in car design and what we really get is moderately incremental changes. The S40 features a number of styling touches which we’ve genuinely never seen before.

The exterior won’t get too many pulses racing, effectively resembling a shrunken S60, but the cabin is a delight.

Volvo interiors are traditionally odd things. Although they work supremely well, they are often clunkily designed with scant regard for the sort of slickness that separates them from rivals.

Little of the design flair we usually associate with the Scandinavians has traditionally seemed to translate into their cars. The ‘spaceball’ gear selector in the S60 showed that Volvo could come up with some neat ideas and the S40 takes the spaceball and runs with it.

The key design feature is a centre console that’s a softly contoured moulding featuring supremely easy to use controls and fresh air behind it. You can specify wood, aluminium, plastic or semi-transparent plastic finishes and everybody who gets in will notice it.

This is probably the neatest interior design feature we’ve come across since the Audi TT was launched. Like the TT’s cabin. the S40’s feels like it has just rolled off a motor show stand.

Prices start at £15,730 for the 1.6 petrol. You pay £18,290 for the S specification 2.0-litre diesel with the 2.4-litre S model weighing in at £19,120. You’ll need to add £2,350 to these prices for ritzier SE trim, a further £1,800 to secure a Sport and £1,900 on top of that to get an SE Sport.

The range-topping T5 model is priced from £23,670.

The key issue now is whether there exists a viable market for this sort of car. If there is, the S40 will flush it out.