Price+Spec news for SA – Volvo S60 Polestar is back, with a twin-charged engine

S60 Polestar is back, with a new twin-charged engine

Polestar is the performance tuning division of Volvo, signified by the blue-blue paint and equally blue Polestar square badges. 

In 2015 South Africa received our first standa-alone Polestar model from Volvo, which was the Volvo S60 T6 AWD Polestar, and for 2016 we’ll be getting the Volvo S60 T6 AWD Polestar.  Huh?  Same name, but a major difference:  the 3.0 6-cylinder turbo T6 (T6 = Turbo 6-cylinder) is swapped out for the eco-friendlier 2.0 4-cylinder (Drive-E engines, as fitted to the latest Volvos) and still called T6, in Volvo’s no-respect-for-the-cylinders new naming strategy.  T6 was the turbo 6, but now the T6 is a turbo 4, supercharged.  Yes, the new T6 uses the same twin-charging of supercharger for intake and turbocharger for outlet as on the other new T6 Volvos.

Power is up, torque is down, consumption and emissions drop meaningfully, and performance is better.  The 3.0T T6 Polestar engine made 258kW at 5250r/min with a neat 500Nm from 3000-4750, whereas the new 2.0T T6 Polestar is said to produce 270kW when the rev needle reaches 6000, and 470Nm stretched across 3100 to 5100 revs.

The clean differences between the 6 and the 4 are in consumption of fuel and emission of exhaust gases, which sees the 9.9 and 231 reduced to 7.8 l/100km and 179g/km, combined.

Acceleration for the previous was 4.9 sec, while with the new engine it is measured at 4.7 seconds 0-100km/h, with both topping out at 250km/h.

OK, the measurable performance is better, but can the 4-cylinder create any aural excitement the way the legendary growling T5 5-cylinder turbo did, or the smoothness and sound sensations from the straight-6 in the recent T6?  Sadly, no.

Both are AWD, where the All-Wheel-Drive is a requisite to get the power to the road, while the transmission is updated from the previous 6 to the new 8-speed Geartronic, optimised by Polestar.

A tell-tale sign that this is the new Polestar?  The rims are still 20-inch, but the 5 Y-spoke design has been given an extra line to form a parallel spoke.  Front brake discs have a new slotted design (see image) to improve braking performance.  

Another quick sell-out?

Volvo performance fans hungry for (and missing the days of) the Volvo R models quickly snapped up the batch of S60 Polestar cars which arrived in SA last year.  For 2016, the new S60 Polestar will arrive as a batch of 32 cars allocated to the country.

The pricing is similar to the previous car, which sold out at R 735 000 – the new Volvo S60 T6 AWD Polestar is scheduled to arrive in the 3rd quarter of 2016, at R 749 526, which includes taxes.