Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Volvo



Jonathan Gitlin



Jonathan Gitlin



Jonathan Gitlin





Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

The Volvo S60 Polestar is unlike every other Volvo we've driven recently. For one thing, it's not a brand-new model; the regular S60 it's based on first appeared in 2010. For another, it's an extremely eye-catching—some might say retina-searing—shade of blue; this car sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Third, it was, for some time, the fastest four-door production car to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife. That's right—this a Volvo with a 'Ring record. Intrigued? We sure were.

What’s a Polestar?

Audi has Audi Sport. BMW has its M Division. AMG is the Mercedes-Benz equivalent. And at Volvo, there's Polestar. For the past two decades, Polestar has been campaigning Volvos in motorsport. More recently, it has been applying that knowhow to road cars, starting in 2014 with an earlier iteration of this S60 (and the V60 wagon). There's precedence for this; in the 1990s, Volvo shook up the British Touring Car Championship by entering a pair of very fast station wagons that did much to inspire a new kind of Volvo fan, shifting a lot of T5 and T5-R models in the process.

But the times are changing, and Polestar's future fast Volvos are likely to be a pair of electric vehicles. They were announced at the same time Volvo boss Håkan Samuelsson told us that all future Volvo cars will feature some kind of electrification.

But enough about the past and future. Let's take a look at this bright blue machine we have today. For starters, it's the quickest car to wear a Volvo badge. Under the hood is a 2.0L turbo- and supercharged inline four engine. The turbo is bigger than the usual one found on an S60, and Polestar also fitted new conrods, camshafts, and a larger air intake and fuel pump to feed it. This new combination worked, for the car now has 362hp (270kW) and 347lb-ft (470Nm). Zero-to-60mph is dispatched in just 4.4 seconds (0-100km/h takes a slightly longer 4.7 seconds), and that Nürburgring lap time? A rather impressive 7 minutes, 51.11 seconds.

Normally, when a car company sets a new lap record at the 'Ring, it shouts about it loudly and with some regularity. Volvo, on the other hand, kept the news to itself for such a long time that its record was beaten, first by Porsche's Panamera Turbo, then by the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. In fact, word only leaked out a year later in the run-up to the World Touring Car Championship races at the same track—a double-header that Polestar won. The reason? "Being Swedish, we didn't want to shout about the record, just learn from the experience," Polestar said.

Other changes, compared to the more pedestrian S60, include some fancy Öhlins dampers and some other suspension tweaks, a carbon fiber strut brace, and new optimized steering. Then there's a revised all-wheel-drive system and eight-speed BorgWarner automatic transmission, some weight reduction (44lbs/20kg overall, and 53lbs/24kg over the front axle), and finally some bespoke Polestar styling tweaks inside and out.

Did you set any track records then?

Unfortunately, the week we spent with the S60 Polestar did not include any on-track driving. But we did put it through a mix of highway and urban use, including an almost six-hour drive from Manhattan to DC that included nearly two hours spent trying to go just a couple of miles. Let me tell you, if your life includes regular traffic jams, there are several fine Volvos you could pick from that would cosset and soothe you in such circumstances while doing much of the heavy lifting, thanks to Volvo's Pilot Assist semi-autonomous driving system. This is not one of them.

In fact, when it comes to the infotainment and self-driving stuff, the Polestar serves as a stark illustration of just how far Volvo has come in such a short amount of time. The cars built on its new SPA architecture (the XC90, S90, V90, and just-released XC60) are very good, and their onboard technology is class-leading. This S60 Polestar is very much of a generation ago; the adaptive cruise control is competent, but the lane keeping is rudimentary, and the infotainment system is functional but not a patch on Sensus.

Again, the interior betrayed the age of the (soon-to-be-replaced) S60 platform. The interior was well put together, with some lovely materials and comfortable seats. But it feels old compared to the more recent SPA cars with their giant touchscreens and all-digital instrument panels.

The Polestar was a slightly curious driving experience, too. The car has a big turning circle and quite heavy steering. The brakes are good but noisy, and the ride is firm without being too firm and much better at controlling itself on broken road surfaces than the V90 Cross Country. It's also pretty quick—we have no reason to doubt that 0-60 time of 4.4 seconds. But the Polestar doesn't encourage you to unleash your inner hooligan the way a Ford Focus RS or Alfa does. No, at the end of the day, it's still a Volvo.

The hardest question to answer about the S60 is who the intended market is. Anyone who does cough up the $60,995 (~£47,000) required to get one on their driveway will find a solidly built and rather fast sedan with some legitimate motorsports cachet. And the S60 Polestar is as extroverted and lairy as a Volvo gets, but it's still within the bounds of what's appropriate for the brand. That means it's going to appeal to a much smaller group of people than the breathed-upon sport sedans of the German trio.

But I'm not sure that's a problem. Polestar will only build a total of 1,500 this year for sale in 47 countries around the world, and so it'll remain a rare sight on the roads. It does make me curious what's next up the Polestar sleeve...

Listing image by Jonathan Gitlin