LuxuryCarMagazine En Luxury Car Review and News
Whoever said the station wagon was dead, well, they haven’t had a chance to run it by Volvo, I’ll put it to you that way.
Review Overview
Styling - 90%
Driving Pleasure - 80%
Performance - 90%
Driving Comfort - 75%
Interior Space - 75%
Fuel Economy - 70%
Winter - 95%
82%
For 2015, the Swedish wagon master has not one, not two but three station wagons in their Canadian line-up and four if you include one of the two cars you see here.
For the V60 Polestar really should be considered a standalone model. Yes, it’s based on the V60, but get behind the wheel of the former (or its sedan cousin, the S60 Polestar), and it doesn’t take long to realize that it’s something special.
How special? Well, they’re developed by Volvo’s Polestar group of race car fame, there are only going to be 750 (across both S60 and V60 models) built this year, and they come in a choice of two colours: Rebel Blue and Black Sapphire. These are rare cars, and deservedly so; they are fantastic.
For starters, just look at them: we talked about the colours, but that’s often an easy way for a manufacturer to make a model “special” or “unique”, giving little to no thought about what else can be done to separate a bespoke model such as this from the rest of the pack.
In that light, the Polestars (from now on, we’ll just use “Polestars” to refer to both the S60 and V60) get a new rear spoilers and diffusers, different front splitter corners, special badging and gorgeous 19-inch wheels that can’t be had on any other Volvos, anywhere. The result? A hunkered down profile (that looks even more serious in wagon form) that I don’t recall having seen on any Volvo prior to this, this side of the Australian V8 Supercar race car. Which, as it happens, was developed by Polestar, along with the marque’s British Touring Car Championship entrants from the early ‘90s.
Behind those rims sit enlarged brake discs, which have grown to 336 mm up front, and 302 at the rear.
Inside, you won’t find the roll cage, five-point harness and single racing seat you would in some of Polestar’s other projects, but there’s no mistaking the focus of this cockpit. The seats, for example, are ultra-deep and supportive buckets with unique stitching and an Alcantara/leather finish. The steering wheel gets a similar treatment and you can’t miss the carbon-fibre centre stack.
You can fit 692 litres of stuff in the wagon, and the lift over is nice and low because with a car-based wagon, you don’t have to deal with exaggerated height of a crossover. The cargo room shrinks to 339L with the sedan, but you actually get more front and rear headroom with the four-door.
I do, however, take the same issue with the Polestar’s centre stack as I do with the rest of the V60/S60 line-up: it’s too busy, and while I appreciate that it has proper buttons instead of an all-touch set-up, the way they’re aligned is less than intuitive. Meanwhile, the way you’re asked to repeatedly press the left stalk-mounted button to navigate your trip computer is a little tough to figure out at first, and annoyingly redundant once you do eventually know what you’re doing.
The power? Well, that’s the easy part; the Polestars get 345 horsepower and 369 lb.-ft. of torque from a turbo V6. Yes, there are more powerful turbo sixes out there, but that’s just the beginning of the story for the Polestars.
It’s not always about the final figure; it’s how you get there that often matters more. For example, the Polestars get special Borg Warner turbos with new intercoolers, new engine software, and special 2.5-inch stainless steel full-flow exhaust. It all helps the Polestars get the power transmitted smoothly from the moment you dip into the throttle (peak torque arrives at 2,500 r.p.m. and hangs around until 4,750), to the moment it reaches the four wheels (that’s a Polestar-tuned Haldex AWD set-up you have there) and has you springing down the road on a wave of power and torque (the 0-60 mph sprint can be done in 4.9 seconds). It’s fantastic, and it sounds fantastic, too, thanks to those canon-like twin exhaust outlets.
While the dinner plate-sized wheel may be a little much for some, it’s connected to a lively steering rack that is perfectly weighted when you’re moving at a good clip, but a little heavy around town. I do like how there are no buttons for your HiFi or climate that clutter the wheel, though; just grab it at 9 and 3 o’clock, and focus on the driving.
Only one transmission is available—a six-speed automatic—because, well, Volvo doesn’t really “do” manuals and considering how technologically sound the rest of the car is, it’s the better choice anyway.
You’ll want to be sure to make use of the wheel-mounted paddle shifters, though; it adds so much more fun and involvement to the drive, and I found the transmission to be a little clunky in automatic mode when it came time to really push the Polestar.
The rest of the drive experience is up there with the best the Germans—usually the kings in this segment—have to offer. You’ll get a little understeer, maybe, but that’s often inherent of an AWD chassis and it’s by no means a deal-breaker here. You can thank the Polestar-special Öhlins dampers—yes, that’s a Swedish company, too—for keeping the Polestars planted in the hairiest of situations, although it’s almost comical how the rear wheels almost scrape the inside of the fenders thanks to the lowered ride height. Having said that, the way the AWD system stepped in when we took the S60 through some snowy conditions is fantastic; it’s so stable, the power transferred from wheel to wheel so quickly that even the scariest skids are quickly sorted. As much as Volvo knows wagons, you know they also know snow.
If I had to choose one of these, however, it would have to be the V60 wagon. It looks the part, it’s capable, and it’s coming from the king of the station wagon; you’d almost be doing yourself a disservice by not getting it, because it just makes your already special model that much more so. Not to mention it beat out both the Dodge Challenger Hellcat and Mustang GT for a category win at the most recent Automobile Journalists Association of Canada’s annual Canadian Car of the Year competition. Plus, for $66,685 (or $64,895 for the S60–that’s a bit of a bargain, actually) you’ll want your Polestar to be as special as possible.
