This is the first full-car collaboration between Volvo and the road-car performance division of its Swedish racing-partner Polestar. The S60/V60 Polestar is built entirely on the factory assembly line, the better to install the stiffer bushings, braces, and mounts that help sharpen its reflexes. Moreover, despite a power boost to 345 horsepower and extensive suspension, brake, aerodynamic, and calibration tweaks, the Polestars merit the same fuel-economy, emissions, and crash-test ratings as those of the all-wheel-drive R-Design models on which they’re based. Volvo insisted. Left to their own devices, the hard-core racers at Polestar might have gone in for something more akin to the wild 505-hp S60 prototype the company was showing 18 months ago, but the social-minded Swedes who still run the Chinese-owned (Geely) company didn’t want a track-day special for Touring Car fan boys. They wanted a Volvo that would appeal to mature drivers of a serious bent, the sort who might otherwise shop German brands. The marketing tagline is "when driving matters," by which we infer the unintended admission that for most Volvo owners, most of the time, it doesn’t, at least not as much as does the firm’s crash-it-and-walk-away reputation.
