2011 Volvo S40 T5 Sedan 4-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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Volvo Concept Estate gets official [w/video]

The final chapter of Volvo's concept car trilogy has arrived after a few teasers earlier this week, as well as some recently leaked images, and as we so astutely summarized previously, it's a brown shooting brake. Really, we couldn't think of a better type of vehicle to follow up the Concept Coupe from the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Concept XC Coupe from the Detroit Auto Show and complete the Swedish trinity of concepts.
It's best to think of the Concept Estate as the hipper, classier cousin to the Concept Coupe. The two are virtually identical below the beltline, featuring front fascias that are indistinguishable from each other (except one is, you know, brown). Both cars wear wide, rectangular grilles inspired by classic Volvo models and T-shaped headlights Where the Concept Estate differs, obviously, is with its more functional rear end and longer roof.
That rear is accented by the Estate's wide haunches and slim, angular taillights, which borrow heavily from the units shown on the Concept XC Coupe. These two features work in tandem to present a wide, squat appearance from the rear. The profile, meanwhile, shows off that spacious greenhouse, which is made even airier by a glass roof.

Junkyard Gem: 2012 Volvo C30 T5 with 6-speed manual

Every year, fewer new vehicles are available in the United States with manual transmissions (though the ancient five-on-the-floor still exists… for now). American Volvo buyers preferred three-pedal setups in their cars later than some, though even they had mostly fallen out of love with manuals by the time the 1990s dawned. Still, some stubborn holdouts kept demand for the once-beloved gearbox technology alive here, until Geely-owned Volvo axed the manual transmission for the U.S. market after the 2013 model year. The final three-pedal Volvo sold here was the C30, and I've found one of those rare machines in a New Orleans car graveyard. The C30 was a cool-looking two-door hatchback that borrowed some styling influences from the the beloved 1800ES shooting brake. The biggest problem with it in the United States was that two-doors and hatchbacks in general no longer enticed many potential buyers into signing on the line which is dotted. The U.S.-market 2012 C30 came with a 2.5-liter turbocharged straight-five engine rated at 227 horsepower and 236 pound-feet, and owners could buy the Polestar Performance software upgrade to increase those numbers to 250 horses and 273 pound-feet. That made for a respectably quick machine with its curb weight of just 3,200 pounds. The six-on-the-floor manual was base equipment; if you wanted the five-speed automatic, the cost was $1,250 more ($1,711 in 2024 dollars). This is a base T5 model, so its MSRP was $24,950. That's about $34,159 after inflation. The C30 was discontinued after the 2013 model year, after many years of underwhelming sales numbers here. This one looked to have been in very nice cosmetic condition when it arrived here, so we can assume that it suffered some costly mechanical malfunction. There's more to life than a Volvo. That's why you drive one. There was an English-language version of this ad, but I prefer the Swedish one. The previous commercial dared to show a manual transmission, but the car in this ad has the slushbox. Is it ugly or is it beautiful?

2015.5 Volvo S60 and V60 Polestar [w/video]

Polestar Performance has been around since 1996, but until recently, it only did two things: manage Volvo motorsports operations and run a specialist consumer-facing side that built concept cars and boosted Volvo's turbocharged production cars by 15 to 60 horsepower. Five years ago, it fulfilled its long-held desire to engineer an actual production car, first creating the C30 Polestar Performance Concept, a showcar that led to the C30 Polestar Limited Edition.
That foray led to the berserker, 508-horsepower 2013 S60 Polestar Concept that Auto Motor und Sport called "a hard slap in the face to the Germans," and that model led to the limited-edition S60 Polestar production car just for Australia, a car reviewers swooned for, with one comparing its chassis finesse to the Ferrari 458 Italia.
All of which is to say, Polestar has a good start for a motorsports and tuning company to make good on its production car dreams. The 2015 Volvo S60 Polestar and V60 Polestar keep that momentum going, and beautifully at that.