A Volvo venturing into a hot hatch shoot out? It is rather difficult to grasp, but when the Swedish marque’s contender sports sharp, retro-flavoured styling and a powerful turbocharged engine, things begin to make a bit more sense.
The C30 T5 may share its underpinnings with the conservative S40, but it is anything but understated. The nose very much a signature Volvo affair, but small touches up front – such as the black headlamp surrounds and gaping, slatted grille – give the car a more athletic and aggressive face. The rear is especially striking, with a glass hatch that gives a retro nod to the P1800 sportswagon of the 1960’s and stacked taillights. Top it all off with a lowered and stiffened Sports chassis, as well as a set of 17-inch alloys, and the T5 has a classy but purposeful air about it.
The C30 T5’s cabin may not exhibit the same sense of occasion as the exterior, but Volvo’s cabins are always a tactile and tasteful place to be. The facia is dominated by a funky, wafer-thin “floating” hang-down section with a metallic finish. The two tone seats are upholstered in a variety of colourful, hard-wearing materials that augment the youthful air of the C30 while the rest of the cabin remains neat and functional.
Beneath the T5’s bonnet lurks the same turbocharged, 5-cylinder engine doing service in the Ford Focus ST. In the Volvo, this 2,5-litre unit develops 162 kW at 5 000 r/min and 320 N.m of torque from just 1 500 r/min. Drive is sent to the front wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. In a CAR road test this engine propelled the C30 T5 to 100 km/h from standstill in 7,5 seconds, achieving a top speed of 240 km/h.
With such performance on tap the drivers taking part in our shoot out will be pleased ro know that beneath the C3 T5’s hip exterior lurks a raft of the company’s famous safety features, including standard dual, front and side airbags along with Volvo’s Whiplash Protection system.
The C30 steps into a fiercely competitive arena occupied by the likes of the BMW 130i , Audi’s S3, and the Mini Cooper JCW. It has the requisite firepower to cause an upset – could it wreak ‘Swede’ revenge on Audi for being pipped in last year’s comparative test?[sigh – Ed].
You can read South African circuit racing stars Hennie Groenewald and Philip Kekana’s track appraisals of the Volvo C30 T5 R-,Line in the January 2009 issue of CAR magazine, in which we put 18 of South Africa’s hottest hatches to the test at Killarney.
Listen to hot hatch exhaust notes.
Download wallpapers from the Track Shootout here: Batch 1, Batch 2 and Batch 3, or Batch 4.
Watch two Ultimate Hot Hatch Shootout videos
You can also view the behind-the-scenes or the Franschhoek Pass Shootout galleries.
