Volvo C30 T5 Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Volvo C30 T5
Prices: £20,235 – on the road
Insurance Group: 16
Emissions: 209g/km
Performance: Max Speed 149mph / 0-60mph 6.2s
Fuel Consumption: (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

SPORTY SWEDE

Our Rating: 7.3 / 10

Volvo has flattered to deceive with its ‘sporty’ models in the past. With the C30 T5, the company might be onto something. Andy Enright reports

I’ll level with you. I loved the old Volvo 850 T5. This was a car with true cross country ability, was well built and seriously quick. Despite Volvo’s exploits in touring car racing, however, there was no way you’d mistake the 850 for a sportscar. Wooden controls and a propensity to veer from one lane to another when the throttle was pressed saw to that. I’d like to paint a picture of Volvo’s ongoing development of sporty cars in the intervening twenty years but it’s not a wholly rosy story. Just lately though, things have started looking up and the C30 SportsCoupe, especially in born-again T5 guise, is proof that the Swedes are finally on the right track.

We’ll get to what it is later. For the time being we’ll just concentrate on how it goes and the answer to that is better than you’d have any reasonable hope of expecting. It’s a car that manages to flatter the average driver and rewards those with a few more tools in their locker. So many seriously powerful GTi hatches feel as if they have a little too much power but the chassis of the C30 is so talented and the engine so tractable that it always feels a class act. That’s a little surprising as it runs on much the same underpinnings as the S40, a model that always seemed less than the sum of its parts, but the added chassis rigidity of the C30 means that the suspension has a few less curveballs thrown at it and can get on with the job of keeping the car on the road.

Over the first couple of miles, I wasn’t feeling much love for the steering, the electrically-assisted system offering too much help. Up your game and the Volvo responds, higher speeds bringing a more reassuring weighting. Grab the thick-rimmed wheel, resolve to show the next corner a good larruping and you’ve got a very willing accomplice.

Catch it off guard and the C30 T5 can feel slightly nose heavy, that five-cylinder 226bhp turbo engine being quite a hunk of metalwork, but traction is so good that when you get it right, the C30 just slingshots out of a bend with no drama, very little in the way of torque steer and one of the most infectious engine notes around. The sprint to 60mph takes just over six seconds and a top speed in the region of 150mph will be more than adequate. Wet traction off the line isn’t the greatest but lateral grip is superb. The powerplant serves up a big slug of torque between 1,700 and 6,750rpm. It’s this driveability that makes the C30 T5 such a formidable weapon, although it does come with a rider. If you want to really exploit that 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.

It’s impossible to consider the C30 without at least a passing reference to the old P1800 ES. That was it. On with the new stuff. The C30 takes Volvo’s contemporary design direction and smashes it out of the park. If you’re still not quite comfortable with the concept of a sexy looking Volvo, this one will leave you wondering exactly when the sands of motoring fashion shifted under your feet. The latest models are sharper dressed still thanks to a reasonably thorough facelift.

This is the fourth car spawned from the S40 platform, the others being the V50 estate and the C70 convertible. Volvo had long earmarked this fourth model but weren’t quite sure what it was going to be. Taking a wait and see approach, the company consulted its customers, looked at the way the industry was moving, consulted its magic 8-ball and came up with the C30 ‘SportsCoupe’, a model that will doubtless drive down the average age of Volvo buyers by a good few years.

The company is keen to stress its similarity to the P1800ES, although they are a little more reticent about comparing it to a model a