I’ve always had an appreciation for the less obvious choice. The middle-manager who goes for a Saab rather than a Mondeo. The middle-class mum who chooses a yellow Leon over a silver Golf. But what about the hot-hatch buyer who decides a Volvo C30 T5 is the one for them? Wise move, or just being different for the sake of different?
A Volvo hot hatch is by definition a niche product. The kings of the genre, like the Mini Cooper S and Renaultsport Clios, are well known, and it’s hard to open any car magazine without coming across at least a paragraph of effusive praise for their grin-inducing qualities. Volvo’s shift from builder of dour, dull transport to ‘thinking man’s choice’ has been well chronicled in those pages, too, and the hot T5 version of the 850 estate will long remain a petrolhead favourite for its wicked combination of searing pace and boxy practicality. But how will this ‘alternative’ philosophy translate for the traditional, three-door, front-wheel-drive hot hatch buyer?
Based as they are on mass-manufactured shopping carts, hot hatches are rarely all-time design classics, but the right details here and there can leave them looking quite smart and purposeful, and such is the case with the C30 T5. The big alloys, twin tailpipes and some chunky skirts and arches strike all the right notes, and while some might like their performance cars to shout about their potential a bit more, I’m a big fan of restrained yet potent looks. One final touch – the small badge under the nearside rear light cluster, which hinted at our test car’s extra dimension: the Polestar Performance upgrade.
Polestar is not nearly as well known as Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M-Division, but it fulfils a similar function for the Swedish manufacturer – developing and running racing versions of Volvo cars and offering factory performance upgrades for its road cars. For £645, your local Volvo dealer will give your C30 T5 a Polestar remap, which boosts power output from 230bhp to 250bhp and torque from 320Nm to 370Nm, while also smoothening out the power and torque curves for better day-to-day drivability. The end result is a properly quick car, but one that’s perhaps lacking a little in drama. Some like it that way, others will be disappointed.
Stacked against its contemporaries, the T5 is quite an honest and straightforward performance car, with no range of driving modes, fancy diffs, or clever semi-auto gearboxes to its name. It’s just you, an eager 2.5-litre 5-cylinder motor, a precise six-speed gearbox and the road – perfect! Well, nearly. The T5 is superlative at swift A-road blasts and rapid motorway overtakes and cruising, but when you point it at a more dynamic and demanding route, some shortcomings appear. The most notable are overly light and vague steering and front-end grip that falls somewhat short of the magnetic levels achieved by some rivals. On ‘proper’ driving roads, it’s good, but not quite good enough.
One thing the C30 T5 does have going for it, though, is its price. Even including the £645 cost of the Polestar remap, it still comes in just a shade over £22,000, massively undercutting its 200bhp+ competition. Whether you consider that to be good value or not rather depends on how much importance you attach to sheer power and speed. If you rate those qualities highly, there are few cheaper ways to 250bhp in a new car on sale today. And the C30′s ‘sleeper factor’ is an important part of the appeal, too. But if you value agility and driving engagement, you may be better off for the same money in a more traditional, if lower-powered hot hatch. If Volvo really wants to make a mark in the performance car segment, it needs to put the lurid, 400bhp, 4WD C30 Polestar into production as soon as humanly possible. The world needs more cars like that right now.
This test drive was originally published in Redline magazine
