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2013 Volvo C30 R-Design Polestar Limited Edition [w/video]

Last Hurrah Comes and Goes In A Hurry
It isn't very often that we drive a new car that's already out of production, but that's exactly what has happened with this 2013 Volvo C30. After just five years on the North American market, the last C30 quietly rolled off the assembly line back in December. But before that happened, Volvo decided to send its compact hatchback out on a high note with a little added performance and exclusivity courtesy of this R-Design Polestar Limited Edition model.
The term "hot hatch" is admittedly tossed around a lot these days, but the combination of an R-Design styling package coupled with a good number of extra ponies under the hood should be more than enough to put the C30 in the mix with the likes of the Volkswagen GTI and its not-too-distant cousin, the Mazdaspeed3. The chief problem with the Polestar Limited Edition, though, is that it's priced against sportier all-wheel-drive compacts like the Golf R and Subaru WRX STI, so we decided to spend a week with the Polestar to see if its exclusivity and performance are enough to make up for its higher price tag.

Geely targeting US market in 2016 with help from Volvo

Following reports that it'd team up with corporate sibling Volvo on a Chinese-market car comes a report from Bloomberg that Geely would reattempt its entry into the US market. The Chinese brand had a display at the 2006 North American International Auto Show, but has been absent from the US scene ever since.
The Geely branded cars will be jointly developed with Volvo, and bank on the Swedish manufacturers reputation for safety and reliability. Geely's CEO, Gui Shengyue, explained, "Our acquisition of Volvo enhanced our image and overseas consumers are seeing us as an international company." This represents a change in rhetoric for the brand, after Geely Chairman Li Shufu hamstrung the idea of a closer pairing, citing fears that an association would harm Volvo's reputation. The news of projects between Geely and Volvo first broke last week, although it's unclear if the cars that end up coming to the US will be the same as those being sold in China.
As we reported last week, Geely is already aiming to be the biggest brand in the Chinese domestic market. With this move to the US market, it's also attempting to overtake Chery as China's largest automotive exporter. According to the Bloomberg report, Geely has already moved 180,000 units overseas, which is extremely close to the 184,800 vehicles sold by Chery in 2012. By 2018, Geely anticipates that 60 percent of its sales will be occur outside of the PRC.

Stolen first production Volvo P1800 recovered

Late last month, we told you about a 1961 Volvo P1800 that had been stolen in Sweden. The thought of losing a classic coupe to an unscrupulous thief is troubling enough, but this wasn't just any P1800 - it was the very first production example minted, and the restored red-over-white two-door was owned by the vice president of the Swedish P1800 Club to boot. Chassis Number Two was pilfered from a Stockholm lockup on either August 21 or 22, and the theft triggered an international hunt of sorts.
Fortunately, that hunt has come to a (mostly) happy ending. According to Larmtjänst AB, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting vehicle crime in Sweden, the car was spotted by someone who had read about the missing classic. The P1800 was recovered in Hägerstensvägen, a municipality of Stockholm, after being found abandoned on the road covered with a tarp. The owner is reportedly very relieved that his Volvo is mostly intact, marred only by a broken ignition and a dirty interior.