We all know how a concept car should work: as a preview of a specific future technology, design direction or collaboration between new partners. This is what you have to look forward to, folks, is usually the message. Or at the very least here's something so wild that it could never actually be produced - but expect to see the door handles on next year's SUV.
Polestar didn't quite get the memo, though. Yes, its C30 Performance Concept Prototype - revealed on April 22nd 2010 to preview a future where Polestar made Volvo's performance cars - was too audacious to productionise at the time. But it was also too well sorted to forget.
It all made sense, of course. Fast Volvos really hadn't been the same for a long while, lacking the shock value of earlier models as well as the finesse of their German rivals. By 2010 the fairly uninspiring S60 R had been off sale for three years, the C30 T5 was bettered by the Focus ST with which it shared so much, and Polestar was little known to anyone outside of Sweden.
There was no excuse for the latter, given Polestar's success in turning Volvo road cars - including the C30 - into touring car champs for years, with the 2009 Swedish Touring Car title won by Tommy Rustad in a Polestar Racing C30. And we all know that nothing helps the image of a fast car like some genuine motorsport kudos.
The plan, therefore, should have been simple: make a C30 Polestar concept that looked but didn't move, tell the world that it previewed something special from the partnership, and leave town with eveyone's appetites whetted. The Brussels motor show - yes, that's where Polestar debuted the car - wouldn't have known what had hit it.
Only Polestar didn't do that. They spent 130,000 euros building a one-off C30 PCP, with the T5's engine treated to new pistons, rods and cams, alongside a bigger turbo, larger intercooler and the 'Midsommar party' map on the ECU. The Polestar Concept made 405hp and 376lb ft, channelled to the road via an adapted V50 Haldex all-wheel drive with Quaife diffs front and rear and a six-speed manual gearbox. Remember this was before any of the current super hatches, even a year before the original RS3 in fact, so those were genuinely astounding numbers to see applied to the formerly humble C30.
Everyone has attached silly figures to a concept car and left it there for the future to forget about, though. It was Polestar who went to the trouble of fitting expensive Ohlins springs and dampers, alongside big Brembo brakes and a strut brace and then actually tuning the ensemble to make 405hp seem logical. It even went to the trouble of kitting out the Performance Concept with enough suede inside to make a McLaren blush, some lovely new bucket seats and a body kit that both aided downforce and looked production viable. It was a proper effort.
The worst thing Polestar did, in fact, was let bloody journalists drive it. Because, surprise surprise, given a healthy budget, a race team can make a formerly staid hatchback seem pretty exciting on a test track. The plaudits came flooding in: one review called it "one of the most entertaining cars we've driven in years"; another reckoned the Performance Concept was "blisteringly quick" with "staggering" levels of grip. The PH drive echoed these sentiments, while adding that "the whole car is suffused with a sense of polish and refinement that seems entirely in keeping with 21st century Volvo's smooth, sophisticated MO." It really did work, the PCP, and that's what made the decision not to make it so irritating.
A decade later, however, it looks borderline infuriating. Not only is the 400hp hot hatch now an easily marketable prospect, nothing from Polestar since has quite elicited the same gleeful response. The 500hp S60 follow up was similarly excellent - Polestar just couldn't help themselves, clearly - but the team never figured out how to build the car at cost or how to join an existing class. At least with the C30 they would have been creating one, one that we've now learnt suits the UK down to the ground.
Furthermore, the eventual manifestation of Polestar's desire to be the in-house performance arm for Volvo in the UK was the V60 Polestar; a perfectly decent car, though tepid in the grand scheme of things. Beyond the performance packages, the impact of Polestar in the UK has been modest at best.
And now look where we are. Polestar is focussed on "sustainability, digital technology and design" with vehicles inspired by the Precept. Of course we all have to accept and embrace the future to some extent, but wouldn't it have been nice if Polestar had had a proper legacy in fast road cars, rather than tantalising one-offs and limited-run concepts?
As it is, the C30 will remain a frustrating taste of what might have been from a patently very talented bunch of engineers. Perhaps the PCP's most significant failing, actually, was that it simply arrived a little too soon; in a world of A45s, RS3s and M135is, the viability of a fast, small Polestar Volvo - be that a C30, or the later V40 - with around 400hp would have been far greater than in 2010.
Add into to that the fast Volvo heritage and good favour enjoyed by the brand in the UK and the C30 could (maybe should) have been a fascinating addition to the mega hatch establishment; let's hope some of that nous, and the excitement it fostered in enthusiasts, can be replicated in Polestar and Volvo's fast car future.
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