Volvo C30: Pull up a seat and get comfy
— -- Sometimes a car is so spot-on, you don't care if it's the right size or has the best features or comes from your favorite brand. Meet Volvo's C30 T5, a royal, rollicking romp of a small, two-door car.
It is so wrong in some ways.
Seating is deliberately cut down to just four, not the five everybody else swears (wink, wink; nod, nod) you can stuff into a small car. You can't get the weather-beating all-wheel drive (AWD) that Volvo offers on its other models. (But AWD fits the C30 chassis and is likely as a future option.)
And get this: You have to pay $300 for the privilege of buying certain individual factory-installed options from what Volvo calls the Custom Build list.
Volvo notes that the C30 comes pretty well-equipped to start. And many desirable options — such as automatic transmission, sunroof, satellite radio, leather upholstery — are available without paying the Custom Build fee. Also, about two-thirds of the options on the Custom Build list are available as dealer-installed options without paying the fee.
C30 was intended mainly for the European market, and "The idea was to see if people were interested in getting deeper into some features we normally don't get here," spokesman Dan Johnston says. Items such as wild colors, different interior trim, various electronic features. "It costs us more to build because we have to pull the cars from the regular line" to install the unusual features, Johnston notes.
How's that working for you, Volvo?
Darn good, it seems: 41% of C30 buyers through Dec. 5 paid the Custom Build fee to have access to those options, according to Volvo data.
Buyers seem willing to pay the fee to get a car "that's just like they want; that they won't see coming and going," says Art Battaglia, C30 product manager.
Ignore that, if you wish, because the C30 T5 is a marvelous car.
The look is evocative of the 1800 ES sport wagon Volvo fielded in the 1970s. To paraphrase a common comment from those who spied the C30 in parking lots: Volvo is making cool cars again.
The drivetrain is a delight. You'd expect some quirkiness because the C30 has the oddball approach to powerplants typical of Volvos.
As Volvo-philes could predict from the car's T5 designation, power comes from an in-line, transversely (sideways) mounted, five-cylinder, turbocharged engine. Rare duck. You'd expect a five to be rough-running (no physical reason; that's just what your mind imagines when it hears an odd number of cylinders). And turbos: Aren't those touchy and hard to drive smoothly?
None of the above. The test car was smooth and quick to respond. The manual transmission was a joy. Easy to shift and connected to a clutch that had seemingly contradictory attributes: It engaged softly as you let out the pedal, so there was no risk of jerky starts, killing the engine, or over-revving trying to start uphill. Yet it engaged crisply, never telegraphing slippage or hesitation.
Volvo is eyeing a 2.4-liter, non-turbo engine for a lower-price version C30 in the future, though not during the '08 model year. Expect it to be rated about 60 horsepower less than the T5's 227 hp, but don't expect more than 1 or 2 mpg better fuel economy.
Other dynamic elements — brakes, suspension, steering — were above average in the test car, an uplevel 2.0 model. The 2.0 comes with a sportier suspension than the base 1.0 model, which is tuned more for comfort.
The seats. You can't talk about a Volvo without championing the seats as probably the industry's most comfortable. You gotta wonder why all other automakers don't simply copy 'em. Or at least why Ford Motor f doesn't. It owns Volvo, after all.
In C30, the seats are such a big part of the appeal, we'll give them their own section:
Only two seats in back. Refreshingly honest.
Designing just two seats in back allows them to be located inboard a bit so occupants can see between the front seats instead of looking into their backs. That also moves the rear riders farther from side impacts.
There's room to maneuver in back. It's relatively easy, for example, for a parent to tip and slide the front passenger's seat forward, lean into the back seat — almost crawl clear inside the car — and strap Junior or Sis into the kid seat more easily than in some SUVs or big wagons. The only wrinkle is that lifting the latch and tilting and sliding the front seat are a cumbersome mix of movements.
C30 seems like Volvo's version of Toyota's Scion vehicles, aimed at youthful thinkers unconcerned about what mainstream buyers might think, available with a sackful of individual options.
Also, like Scion, C30 is a hip execution of hardware already in production. C30's foundation is the chassis of the Volvo S40 sedan: same wheelbase, same track width. But the C30 is about 8 inches shorter overall and 160 pounds lighter. Special materials and design make the C30 as safe in a rear crash as the longer S40, Volvo says.
The C30 turns out to be appealing enough to make you forget you went out to buy a conservative sedan, small SUV, large dog, or whatever, in the first place.
ABOUT THE VOLVO C30
•What is it? Volvo's smallest; front-wheel-drive, four-passenger, high-performance, two-door coupe. Made at Ghent, Belgium.
•How soon? On sale since June, when a single one was sold, according to Autodata. Widely available since September.
•How much? T5 Version 1.0 starts at $23,445 including $745 destination charge. T5 Version 2.0 starts at $26,445. Test car was 2.0 priced at $27,950.
•How many? Planning on 8,000 a year in the USA; more if demand dictates.
•What's the drivetrain? 2.5-liter, turbocharged five-cylinder rated 227 horsepower at 5,000 rpm, 236 pounds-feet of torque at 1,500 rpm; six-speed manual transmission; traction control.
•What's the safety gear? The expected: front, side and head-curtain air bags; anti-lock brakes; stability control.
•What's the rest? Standard features include: climate control; power steering, brakes, windows, locks; AM/FM/CD/MP3-compatible stereo with auxiliary input jack; remote-control locks; tilt/telescope steering column; rear window defroster; rear fog light.
•How big? Not very: 167.4 inches long, 57 inches tall, 70.2 inches wide on a 103.9-inch wheelbase.
Weight is listed as 3,201 pounds. Cargo space is listed as 12.9 cubic feet behind the rear seat, 20.2 cubic feet when the seat is folded. Rated to carry 1,040 pounds of people and cargo. Rated to tow 2,000 pounds.
•How thirsty? Manual transmission rated 19 miles per gallon in town, 28 on the highway, 23 in combined driving. Automatic rated 19/27/22. Trip computer in manual transmission test car showed 20.3 mpg in suburban driving.
Premium fuel is recommended, but owner's manual all but encourages you to use regular. Won't get the advertised power, Volvo says, but you won't be able to tell the difference. In fact, Volvo plans to just recommend regular in the near future.
•Overall:A hoot.