"Safe and Swedish" needn't exclude performance. Michael McAleer reports
Volvo has entered the power battle raging at the moment in the motor industry. Despite doom and gloom in financial markets, and concerns over oil prices and global warming, many of the major marques have been battling it out to see who can produce the ultimate performance road car.
The safety-conscious Swedes are attempting to liven up their image with a duo of saloon car powerhouses. Now part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, Volvo invited us to pre-production testing of its two R-tagged performance entrants last week.
On a wet and windy morning in the south of France, we meet the members of Volvo's Project R team to inspect the fruits of their four years of hard labour. Not only on the varied roads of Provence, but on Bernie Ecclestone's freshly painted playground, the F1 test track in Castellet, better known as the Paul Ricard high-tech test track.
Admittedly this is not the first time Volvo has entered the performance race. In the early 1990s it introduced the 850 T5 and has continued to dabble in performance sports since then. However, the latest offerings suggest a more serious intent to make its mark in the high-speed market.
The Swedish engineers are particularly proud of the new chassis settings, which can be adjusted by the driver. Three buttons in the middle of the instrument panel indicate the options available: comfort, sport, or advanced sport.
While comfort offers a soft and insulated ride, sport aims to optimise the drive with better body control. Finally, 'advanced' aims to offer maximum road holding on winding roads and at high speeds.
At the heart of the system is a programme developed jointly by Ohlins Racing AB and Monroe, that allows the shock absorbers to be adjusted 500 times a second (yes a second).
There is no doubting the sincerity of the Volvo engineers. They take their job very seriously and have a strength of belief in their individual input to the cars that would make the pope seem agnostic. But the big test is when it all comes together.
Are the sum of their individual efforts add up? Yes and no. Certainly for the V70R the answer is not so clear.
The ride and handling was sedate and at times you felt a loss of direct contact with the road. Even when the chassis was in "advance" mode, the steering still felt slightly numb. The "comfort" mode can only really be used on the glassy smooth surfaces. "Sport" is more in keeping with what you would expect on Irish surfaces, though it did have the knock-on effect of upsetting our back-seat passengers, not helped by the soft luxurious leather upholstery on which they skated around.
As for the S60R, which we tested both on the roads and on the superb test-track, the engine seems more in tune with the principles of performance, and power flows increase all the way to the redline.
The three chassis settings are less noticeable on the S60R, and the better for it. The handling in the S60R seemed more precise and we felt very comfortable broaching the sharp S-bends in the four-door saloon, even if the French roads have an unnerving trait of narrowing on the exit, leaving you requiring every inch of tarmac.
On the track, with the traction control system switched off, we were fighting with oversteer and only the special asphalt run-off areas of the track prevented us burying the car in the barriers on at least three occassions. Despite the frequently adjusted shock absorbers, the Volvo still manages body roll in the extremely tight corners. Overall, the both models have noticeably stiffer suspension - good for drivers, bad for back-seat passengers.
Both models are powered by Volvo's 2.5-litre engine, developing 300 bhp, lower than most of its competitors, though it does offer a competitive 400 Nm of torque. It's the same unit that powers Volvo's new 4x4, the XC90, due here next year.
No figures for Irish sales are available. In a niche market dominated by the BMW M3, the pricing is likely to be slightly less than the Mercedes C32 or Audi S4.