When you think about high-performance race cars, the name ‘Volvo’ doesn’t usually pop up in discussions. As one of the world’s most conservative car brands, Volvo doesn’t really elicit thoughts of race cars the same way Ferrari or Porsche does.
Yet despite not being considered a popular racing brand, Volvo is far from being a pushover when it comes to car racing. As a matter of fact, the brand’s Swedish Touring Car Team is a defending champ in its racing league.
That being said, Volvo and its racing partner ‘Polestar Performance’ have developed a new racing prototype that’s based on the Volvo C30 with a goal of building a car that boasts just about everything a true-blooded race car driver wants on their car including performance, reliability, and speed.
The prototype C30 comes with a 400-horsepower engine, an all-wheel drive system, and aerodynamic features that were taken from race car data that came from Polestar themselves.
Robert Dahlgren, Polestar’s race and development driver, was geeked up by the thought of seeing a C30 get the full racing treatment. “We love the Volvo C30 - it’s a great car with huge potential for development with its low weight and low centre of gravity,” he said. “It’s also a fantastic road car. But now we go much further by combining the road car with cutting edge racing technology."
For those of you that are intrigued by how this Volvo C30 racing prototype comes out, you won’t have to wait long because the car is scheduled to be unveiled at the Gothenburg Motor Show in a few weeks time (April 22).
Two years ago, we began hearing rumors about Volvo creating a soft-roader with the inner workings of the Volvo C30 and the styling of the Volvo XC60. After being in the pipeline for so long, those rumors were finally confirmed at the Geneva Motor Show by Volvo’s President for Overseas Corporate Strategy, Lex Kerssemakers. He says, "There will be some further expansion of the XC range in the near future."
Generally speaking, society is becoming more environmentally and economically conscious. The trends that we have seen with cars such as the BMW X1 and the Audi Q3 are that of a market wanting more for less. The photo shown here is a rendering of what the Volvo XC 30 might eventually look like. Starting off as a 3-door and possibly moving to a 5-door, this compact crossover shows us that the days of those big, heavy SUVs - along with their ridiculous gas mileage - just might be a thing of the past.
The Swedish automaker Volvo is set to unveil a complete battery electric Volvo C30 this January at the 2010 North American Auto Show in Detroit. The all new zero emissions vehicle will have a range of 150 km and is Volvo’s next step towards a production version of their Recharge concept car. The safety conscious car builder is currently preparing a test fleet consisting of at least 50 electric Volvo C30s which will be used as real world test beds starting in 2011.
The electric C30 is powered by a Lithium-Ion battery pack that can be recharged via either a standard household outlet or a special high capacity roadside charging station. A fill up will take about eight hours, but will be reduced when connected with a high speed charging station. With the batteries topped off, the Electric C30 can sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in 11 seconds while the BEV’s top speed is up around 81 MPH. The electrified C30 has a range of 94 miles and has no gears which means that the motor’s power is delivered seamlessly, and because of the electric motors gobs of torque are available instantaneously.
UPDATE 06/11/2010: Volvo announced today that the C30 Electric is ready for delivery and that the first deliveries will be made this autumn. This is a fleet of ten experimental cars that are equipped with advanced measuring instruments. The selected users of this test fleet will drive the vehicles for a two year period to provide Volvo with the details of their driving experience.
Volvo today announced prices for the 2011 C30 and C30 R-design. The C30 will go on sale at a price of $24,600, while the sporty C50 T5 R-Design starts at just $26,950.
For 2011 the C30 gets a soft nose, front fenders, grille, headlights and lower front spoiler, a larger Volvo iron mark and also larger air intake. For the R-Design version most of the modifications has been made under the skin: steering ratio is lower, spring stiffness has been increased by 30%, and there is also a new sport chassis . Both models come with a turbocharged 227 hp inline 5-cylinder engine and a 6-speed manual transmission.
With the up-coming launch of the much-ballyhooed second installment of the Twilight saga, ‘New Moon,’ the stars of the film are quickly ramping up promotional and marketing efforts to get people to watch the movie. Now, you might think that when we say ‘stars’, we’d be talking about Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart, right?
Not exactly.
In this commercial by Volvo, the Swedish car company – and also the official car for the movie – releases a trailer of sorts to promote the new movie. The only thing different about this one from the other New Moon trailers is that Volvo is promoting the movies’ ‘other stars’, in particular, the Volvo C30 and XC60.
Apparently, Volvo thinks that being associated with pale-skinned vampires would be reason enough for people to come watch the movie.
