I began drinking the Volvo Kool-Aid before I went to college; three 850s later, I bought another car that is a bit overweight and soft: a 2009 Volvo C30 T-5 R-Design, which now has 110,000 miles on it.
The car uses Volvo’s P1 platform, sharing much with the S40, V50 and C70 and by extension, the Ford Focus, Mazda 3 and 5, Ford Kuga, and Ford C-Max, to name a few. The engine is part of Volvo’s effort to constantly reinvent their straight five introduced in the mint ‘93 850 sedan I mistakenly kept for only a year.
Click here for more news on the Volvo C30
With a similar configuration and output of the 2005 Focus ST’s drivetrain, the six-speed ‘box in the C30 is overkill for the 236 ft-lbs of torque available at 1,500 rpm (and it doesn’t go away until 4,800 rpm). This Ford-platformed car is my daily driver for a 45-mile commute that’s half Vermont backroads and half interstate.
-Jack Wilson