Hey, Good Looking!
by David Finlay (02 Dec 03)

It took me a little while to appreciate what a looker the new C70 is. There is hardly a line or a curve on it that hasn't already appeared on some other Volvo, and at first glance I was inclined to think that this car was therefore just more of the same. Over a period of a few days, though, I realised that it was a pleasure to look at from every angle - a delightful object to have parked outside the house.

All this applies whether the roof is up or down, and of course the main point of the C70 is that you have the option of both. The previous-generation C70 was available as either a coupé or a convertible; this one, following an increasingly popular industry trend, is a combination of the two.

There are only so many ways you can fold a metal roof into the boot of a car. All the methods I've seen so far are elegant, and they all take between 20 and 30 seconds to complete from the moment you start pressing the relevant button. All this applies to the C70, though some of the detail is impressive.

For a start, the major roof pieces glide perilously close to each other without actually touching, which drew gasps of admiration from onlookers who were convinced they would touch.

It's also somehow comforting that there is none of this business of small pieces of trim whirring through 90 degrees, as you find in other coupé-convertibles. Every time I see that I can't help thinking that there's something small but complex waiting to go irritatingly wrong some way down the line. All the movements in the operation of the C70's roof mechanism are chunky and reassuringly Volvo-ish.

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