| Road Test Volvo C30 2.0d SE |
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According To Taste
Whatever the merits of those cars - and I must admit I haven't yet driven a 1-Series that impresses me - there is no shortage of younger drivers who aspires to the brands in question. I find it hard to believe that quite so many Bright Young Things are counting the days until they can afford to buy a Volvo, and if I'm right about that it surely follows that the C30 would have to be very different from anything else the company produces in order to entice the smart set into the showrooms. It certainly looks different. There are familiar Volvo touches, most of them at the front end, but the basic profile and the treatment at the rear bear little resemblance to anything else in the current range (though the tail harks back to the 1800 ES and the later 480).
Volvo likes to point out that the C30 was based on a styling exercise that was not originally intended to become a production car, and I can quite believe it. To me, it seems too designer-led, as if nobody had stepped in to say, "Okay, guys, it looks very pretty, but could you tone things down so that we can make it practical?" Hence, for example, the drastic lack of room in the rear, and the tunnel effect down the centre of the car which means you can stand at the back and, if there's no parcel shelf fitted, look through the rear window, past the rear seats, past the front seats and on to the centre console, which you may spend some moments admiring until the owner comes back with the shopping and wants to know why the hell you're starting through their car. Apart from the bit about the owner, that's the official Volvo line, and it sounds like someone has been spending too long drinking the wrong sort of coffee.
Even so, the styling may be enough to attract people to the car. It could hardly be described as nondescript, and if we're going to make direct comparisons I'd say it's more distinctive than the A3 and less alarming than the 1-Series.
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