Volvo S60 and V60 Polestars evolve into lookers for 2015
GOTHENBURG, Sweden — Sometimes, the Swedes do something that’s totally uncharacteristic. Volvo is, in general, a very conservative company — boxy design and safety was its bailiwick. However, as the years have ticked on, its style evolved to the point where a new owner could throw away the box and finally show off the car!
Now comes the advent of the 2015 Polestar editions of the S60 sedan and V60 wagon. When tasked with the job of tweaking the 60, Polestar’s engineers asked themselves a simple question: What makes a great car? It did not take long for them to realize that the clinic route was not the right way to go — ask 10 people that question and you get 10 very different answers. So, the decision was to make a car the engineers themselves wanted to drive.
The starting point for the S60 and V60 Polestar was where rubber meets road — the stock tires went away in favour of a meatier set of P245/35ZR20 Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. The team then engineered back from this point. First, the springs were stiffened (90 per cent up front and 70 per cent in the rear), as were the anti-roll bars (up 15 per cent). Then came a cross-car brace to add rigidity to the front end and new Ohlins shock absorbers all around. The latter feature dual-stage damping. In a nutshell, they are designed to allow the wheel to move up or down as quickly as needed to keep the tire on the road, but without sacrificing the damping qualities. It sounds — and is — complicated and involves blow-off valves, but the set-up works exceptionally well.
Next, the team turned to the Polestar powertrain. The engine gets a new turbocharger and a larger intercooler. This work bumps the stallion count to 346 and it ups the torque production to 369 pound-feet. They also turned up the new turbocharger’s wick — the regular car has a boost pressure of 12 psi, while the Polestar blows the air into the engine at 17.5 psi. This brings a much more rewarding turn of speed — the torque floods to the fore and gives the mid-range some very real urgency. The S60 sedan, which is 40 kilograms lighter than the wagon, runs from rest to 100 kilometres an hour in 4.9 seconds. The wagon and its mass add a tenth of a second to that time.
Both are very quick, but it is through the mid-range that they demonstrated their wares — the 80-to-120-km/h time comes in at a blistering 4.4 seconds and the surge forward does not let up there.
To make sure the Polestar sounded the part, an active exhaust system was added. Below 4,000 r.p.m., it sounds like any other Volvo. However, swing the tachometer beyond that point and a flap opens, creating a straight through system from the catalytic converter back. It certainly did howl delightfully.
The transmission and all-wheel drive were also reworked to make better use of the power at play. The transmission’s shifts are faster and there are paddle shifters. In Drive, the tip-in is responsive and the gearbox upshifts early. Switch to Sport and the tip-in becomes very aggressive and the gears are held much longer.
If the paddles are used in this mode, the box becomes a true manual, meaning it will crash into the rev-limiter if the driver falls asleep at the switch.
The all-wheel-drive system behaves like the regular car until the stability control system is switched off. At this point it sends more power rearward, and for more of the time. It’s still a frontbiased system, but because it splits the power more or less evenly front-to-rear during a fast run or hard cornering it adds much better balance to the car.
The limited edition S60 and V60 Polestars are formidable cars in many respects. In fact, the sedan reminded me of the original BMW M5 — it was family-friendly, but it was also a very serious driver’s car. No, the Polestar duo are not outright track monsters, but they are very quick and proved to be remarkably accomplished at darting into a corner and hauling its way out with a great deal of alacrity.
The S60 Polestar is priced at $64,895. There is a $2,000 premium for the V60 Polestar.