In a new car commercial coming this month, a shiny red sedan is the focal point of a nighttime street scene with tough-looking men chillin' on the corner and lithe, beautiful women falling from the sky among huge, sparkling gems. Hip-hop provides a thumping soundtrack. Toward the end of the commercial, rap superstar L.L. Cool J, as calmly as you wish, croons: "When it starts showing up in music videos, don't let the style and flavor mess with your mind. It's still built like a Volvo." The car Volvo wishes would show up in a music video is its newly redesigned S40 sedan, due in dealerships in March. And it's a nice-looking car, inside and out. But chances are it isn't going to knock many Cadillac Escalades or Bentley Arnages off VH1 anytime soon. Volvo, a division of Ford Motor, is wrestling with an old problem, a problem many automakers would like to have: It seems to have cornered the reputation for top-of-the-line safety. It's not a bad thing for a brand to be associated in buyers' minds with safety. Better than the alternative, right? Especially in the auto industry: 23,000 people die on U.S. roads every year. But driving cars is fun, too--or it can be in the right car on the right road. Volvo thinks the S40 is the right car, so it has launched a campaign to try to show that this Volvo is more than just safe. "We have a car that is nimble, fast and cool," says Thomas Andersson, Volvo's executive vice president for marketing in North America. "All of a sudden, for the target audience, we've taken down the barriers to consideration. Safety can become an added value." The ad campaign, which will run on cable channels like Comedy Central and ESPN, as well as network shows like CSI, Friends and Will & Grace, is targeted at 25- to 35-year-olds, even though Volvo expects its customers to be around 35 to 40. That would be welcome indeed for Volvo: Its customers are, on average, 47, a year older than the industry average and a few years older than buyers of rivals Saab, Audi, Acura and Volkswagen. Volvo had a record year last year, selling 136,000 vehicles, but the brand's success was almost completely attributable to the XC-90, Volvo's first SUV, which debuted in the fourth quarter of 2002. Its car sales, however, have been lackluster. Throughout its history in the United States, the brand has had trouble breaking out of a narrow band of sales. It sold fewer cars in 2002 than it did in 1986. The old S40 was a disappointment for Volvo. It was already dated when it arrived in the U.S., having been on sale in Europe for four years. It was built on a Mitsubishi platform--the result of a since-expired joint venture between the two companies, before Ford bought Volvo and DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ) took a controlling stake in Mitsubishi--and drivers complained it was underpowered and felt cheap. Last year it sold just 18,000 copies in the U.S., down 13% from 2002. The new S40 is truly new, and built on the same architecture Ford uses to build its well-received Focus and the new Mazda3. Volvo thinks it can sell 35,000 to 40,000 units in the U.S. in a full year. The S40 will, of course, continue to have the most safety features in its class, Volvo promises. The company reminds customers of that with its "It's still built like a Volvo" tag line. At the end of another spot, in which an S40 is featured in a videogame, the car gets into a spectacular crash and, naturally, comes out unscathed. But can Volvo have it both ways? Is it still thrilling to do something even if it's completely safe? John Berg, president of EURO RSCG, the agency that created Volvo's campaign, thinks so. Berg, a skier, talks of looking down a steep slope, his mouth dry from fear. "What I'm hoping is that I'm going to have an amazing experience," he says. "I'm not hoping my equipment is going to fail." The S40's safety equipment is no doubt top-notch. What remains to be seen is how amazing the experience will be. Forbes