Volvo C30 Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Volvo C30 range
Prices: £16,245-£21,360 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 7-16
Emissions: 99-209g/km
Performance: [T5] Max Speed 149mph / 0-60mph 6.2s
Fuel Consumption: [T5] (urban) 22.6mpg/ (extra urban) 43.5mpg/ (combined) 32.5mpg
Safety: Twin front and curtain airbags, WHIPS seats, side impact protection system
Dimensions: Length/width/height 4248/1780/1450mm

BOXING CLEVER

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Forget the setsquare stereotype of Volvo cars. With the C30, the Swedish company has let its hair down a bit, particularly in the case of this revised version. Jonathan Crouch checks it out.

The C30 isn’t quite the sort of car we’ve come to expect from Volvo but we like it anyway. The revised model we look at there has funkier styling but the finely honed driving experience remains, making it a desirable option for younger buyers who don’t need the rear seat legroom and bootspace that a car of this size can’t offer. Being a Volvo, it’s safe and well-built too.

One of the things that’s always puzzled me is how Swedes, the hardest drinkers and biggest partiers of all western Europeans, can end up turning out cars like Volvos. Is there some sort of switch that trips as soon as they reach the age of 21 whereby they turn into Sven-Goran Eriksson? Well perhaps, but the development of cars like the Volvo C30 shows that there can be a real spark in contemporary Swedish car design.

The original version we first saw in 2007 wasn’t a bad looker but more recently, the front of this car has been redesigned to reflect Volvo’s current family look. Body panel changes, including the wings and bonnet, create a more distinctive personality that’s more dramatic and expressive. The air intake has been enlarged while the grille also has a smarter honeycomb pattern, unique to the C30. Otherwise, it’s much as you were. The original C30 design brief was formed from various customer clinics and when it took shape, it was loose and relatively easy to fulfil – customers wanted something desirable, low and wide with big wheels and four seats. As a result, this is the fourth car spawned from the S40 platform, the others being the V50 estate and the C70 convertible. But it’s the C30, more than any other model that has been responsible for driving down the average age of Volvo ownership.

On the road, the more powerful C30 models can feel slightly nose heavy but traction is so good that when you get it right, the car just slingshots out of a bend with no drama, and very little in the way of torque steer. There’s also now the option of a stiffer Sports chassis. The T5 petrol unit also produces one of the most infectious engine notes around. Wet traction off the line isn’t the greatest but lateral grip is superb. If you want to really exploit the C30’s performance, you’ll need to steer clear of the automatic option which really takes an edge off the car’s punch. The six-speed manual version is certainly the smart pick, although an advanced, automatic twi

Engine selection is agreeably broad, taking in the modest, this 100PS 1.6-litre petrol unit, to the decidedly immodest in the shape of a 230PS T5 turbo five-cylinder powerplant more widely renowned as the engine that flings the Ford Focus ST up the road. In between these two in the petrol line-up lie 125PS 1.8, 145PS 2.0 and 170PS 2.4i engines. Diesel drivers get the choice of a 109PS 1.6D, which also comes in eco-friendly ‘DRIVe’ guise. Plus there are 136PS 2.0D and 180PS D5 units. Your only other option is the 1.8-litre FlexiFuel engine that can run non normal unleaded or renewable E85 bioethanol.

Built at Volvo’s Ghent facility in Belgium, the C30 has room for four adults, the rear seats folding flat to form a useful loading space. Although it shares the same wheelbase as the S40 saloon, the tape measure shows this car to be fully 22cm shorter and the car shares not one panel with its four-door stablemate, instead offering a very different look and feel. It scarcely seems possible that so much has been pared from the overhangs of the saloon car but such is the wheel-at-each-corner stance of the C30 that it measures just 4,248mm from stem to stern. That inevitably means that bootspace is at something of a premium but at 433 litres, it’s not too bad and you can always extend it to 947 litres by flattening the split-folding rear seat.

There are fascinating design touches everywhere you look around the car, from the ‘floating’ instrument panel to the horseshoe tail lamps, the deep arc of the rear glass and the pumped-up Volvo shoulders that run from the front to the rear lights in one uninterrupted sweep. Some things are reassuringly Swedish. Safety hasn’t been skimped on and as well as the usual airbags and seat belt tensioners, the C30 serves up WHIPS (Whiplash Protection System), SIPS (Side Impact Protection System) and even the option of BLIS (Blind Spot Information System).

Prices lie around the £15,000 to £22,000 bracket, so the C30 sits somewhere between