Car: Volvo S40 R-Design
Prices: £17,245-£22,935 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 10-15
Emissions: 129-210g/km
Performance: [136bhp 2.0 diesel] Max Speed 130mph / 0-60mph 9.2s
Fuel Consumption: [136bhp 2.0 diesel] (urban) 37.7mpg / (extra urban) 62.8mpg / (combined) 50.4mpg
Safety: Twin front and curtain airbags, WHIPS seats, side impact protection system
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height, 4468/1770/1452mm
BETTER BY DESIGN
Our Rating: 7.1 / 10
Volvo’s S40 has always been a very capable car. In R-Design form, it’s trying harder to let people know. Steve Walker reports.
The Volvo showroom isn’t usually the first port of call for thrusting young buyers looking for a compact car with a bit of attitude. That’s not to say that Volvo wouldn’t like it to be and there have been signs of a more concerted effort by the Swedish marque to loom larger on the radar of image-conscious twenty and thirtysomethings. First the C30 hit the streets bursting with fresh design and athletic overtones and then we got the R-Design sub-brand. This collection of accessories has been created to breathe some extra edginess into the S40 and V50 - models that had previously been too easy to overlook.
Sport and its friend sporty are prime candidates for the most overused terms in the UK car market. Manufacturers will offer a ‘sport’ version of virtually any vehicle that they can realistically bolt a spoiler to and it’s reached the stage where most of the term’s meaning has ebbed away. Likewise, undertake the even the briefest of searches and you’ll find the most unlikely candidates being described as sporty. It seems even MPVs are sporty these days. What is the world coming to? Everything’s relative, of course, but that doesn’t help Volvo when its S40 Sport and Sport SE versions are supposed to be the dynamic standard bearers of the range. What was needed was a new brand that could be carefully fashioned to speak of vibrancy, speed and thinly veiled aggression to its target audience. R-Design was the answer. It’s Volvo speak for, well, sportiness.
You can get any of the S40’s engines with one of the R-Design packages. That means the petrol range from the 99bhp 1.6 up to the rapid 227bhp T5 and diesels from the 108bhp 1.6 to the punchy D5. Which one you go for rather depends on how convincingly you want your R-Design S40 to live up to its looks. The T5 is the obvious choice for true performance nuts, capable of running to 60mph from a standing start in 6.3s but the 178bhp D5 diesel might also appeal with its 7.9s showing. The D5 is a five cylinder engine like the T5 but it’s only offered with the Geartronic automatic gearbox. Although the system shifts quickly in manual mode, set to automatic it’s a bit of a dimwit - changing gears mid-corner and at other inopportune moments. The engine is noisy too, so you don’t tend to feel like leaving your foot in and accessing the strongest performance. A far better choice is the 2.0-litre diesel. Its 134bhp output gives a useful turn of speed with 60mph coming up in 8.9s. It’s lighter than the D5 and this is evidenced by a sharper front end and more a pointier feel to the steering.
Getting the Geartronic ‘box really doesn’t make much sense as the super-slick 6-speed manual that comes as standard is one of the S40’s best features. The stubby lever feels good in the hand and moves around the gate with some precision. If you really want an auto, you really should ask yourself whether you’re an R-Design kinda customer after all. The S40 deserves a good engine and gearbox combo because it’s a fine-handling car. It runs on Ford Focus underpinnings and inherits much of that model’s composure and cornering poise.
So, what do you actually get with your R-Design Volvo? The package upgrades the interior and exterior of the S40, sharpening the impact of its styling and raising the tone in the cabin. A full body kit lowers the car visually, the grille and mirrors are picked out in a silver matt finish and a roof spoiler brings up the rear. The Sport models get 17" five-spoke alloy wheels but those are swapped for 18" efforts on the SE Sport version. Inside, the seats look great in Volvo’s unusual T-Tec fabric and cream leather, there’s a sports steering wheel, sports pedals and the displays are illuminated in blue. It’s all very fetching. The R-Design logo is liberally splattered about and even the floor mats get special cream edging. Overall, it feels like a quality package and definitely a cut above the standard S40s.
The R-Design package works well partly because the Volvo S40 is a solid starting point. The car’s neat and chunky shape looks good in comparison to other compact saloons and if anything, the V50 estate version is better-looking still. The interior is an impressive piece of work from Volvo. The floating centre stack with nothing but fresh air behind it is the stand-out feature but the clean, minimalist lines and textured surfaces do give the impression of quality that so many manufacturers are striving for these days. The buttons on the aforementioned centre console are a bit fiddly but the major functions are simple enough to access. Leg
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