Fantastic beast?
£68,990
FOR An electric car that’s fun for more than just the 0–62 sprint
AGAINST Even its maker admits such geekery is a tough sell
BST doesn’t stand for anything This isn’t the Bloody Swift Thing or the Battery Speed Teleporter It’s actually a contraction of ‘Beast’ the nickname given to the one off speedy Polestar commissioned for the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year
The story the engineers like to tell is that Polestar’s boss Thomas Ingenlath set them a challenge to make his Polestar company car more fun
The result was the ‘Experimental’ Polestar one off that made silent but violent runs at Goodwood in And guess what? The boss and enough Polestar fans liked it that it’s gone into limited production Very limited in fact Only of these will ever exist of which are coming to the UK and they’re all sold Getting a bit boring that isn’t it? Limited edition Porsches Alpines Ferraris even the Toyota GR The moment you hear they exist they’re gone
Polestar says the people who’ve paid nearly k for the honour are “performance nerds” It sees a small but faithful market for quick EVs that offer more tricks than stomach churning acceleration To that end the BST has the geekiest suspension yet applied to a Polestar
Like the Polestar Performance Pack it comes with expensive Öhlins dampers as standard But unlike the P PP these are new remote reservoir dampers with gorgeous erm reservoirs nestled in the frunk That means adjusting the dual valve dampers no longer requires removing wheels At the front pop the bonnet and crank the wheel hard over to meddle with compression and rebound At the back it still needs the rear wheelarch peeling If you’ve got a handy pit crew of eight or so and twin trolley jacks this can be accomplished in less than seconds
If you’re bleeding heart into the subject and fantasise over dialling in your car perfectly for a tricky off camber roundabout on your commute then you’ll love stuff like this It’s full on anorak car bore stuff for the EV speed freak
It makes a Tesla Model look about as well honed in the chassis and handling department as a canal boat and demonstrates once again that if you want a comfortable yet keen steering car expensive suspension is the unsung hero you need to shell out for
It’s not as sexy as weight saving or as headline grabbing as a big dollop of power to cut your lap time but if you take driving quickly seriously like the Swedes do then you want designer label shocks and springs But it’s bloody pricey And so’s the stripe It’s
extra just for the sticker