S60 Polestar just the start

Polestar boss Christian Dahl has predicted the next generation of high-performance Volvos his company is developing will be even better than the much-lauded S60 Polestar.

Volvo is developing what it calls the Scalable Product Architecture (or SPA) to underpin future model from the 60 series upwards and is shifting to a family of new four-cylinder petrol and turbo-diesel engine dubbed Drive-E to power them.

The current S60 Polestar is based on the S60 T6 AWD, which uses Volvo’s 3.0-litre turbo-petrol inline six-cylinder engine and an aged architecture developed with former parent Ford.

The combination of the SPA architecture and an uprated version of the top-spec Drive-E turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-litre petrol T6 228kW engine has Dahl excited.

“We can’t wait for the SPA platform because it is a completely new model or chassis and it has much more high tech and new opportunities,” he said. “So it can’t come quickly enough for us to start working with that one.

“We [are] going to go into the Drive-E engines on the performance car in the future also,” he confirmed. “It’s a fantastic engine but it’s just been launched and we need a bit of time to lift the performance even more.

“One big advantage of the Drive-E is not only the power and performance but also the weight. It will be fantastic to get all that weight off the front of the car and together with the SPA platform in the future I think it is a really strong concept.”

The Drive-E engine starts rolling out in Australia within weeks, while SPA will debut under the all-new XC90 cross-over due in 2015. The next generation S60/V60 range is expected by 2017.

Improving significantly from the S60 Polestar will be a laudable effort, as it has been widely praised by motoring media as easily the most sporting and enjoyable Volvo in living memory.

Currently only sold in Australia, it has just been updated for 2014 with Brembo brakes, gearshift paddles and new seats. Its launch coincides with Volvo’s entry into V8 Supercars racing with an S60 using a Polestar-developed 5.0-litre version of its B8444S engine .

The MY15 S60 Polestar will be released around mid-year and expand the Polestar brand into seven other markets, including the UK, which will only take a V60 version.

Dahl said Polestar, which has been Volvo’s global motorsport and performance partner since the 1990s, will stick with developing models in the “60 cluster” for now, although he admitted the arrival of another new architecture dubbed CMA (C-segment Modular Architecture) meant smaller performance such as a V40 hot hatch could eventually be considered.

“We can do it technically, but we are quite a small company,” Dahl said. “Of course all the models are on the radar for the future. But for the moment we are in S and V60 and I think we are going to stay in the 60 class, especially as we deal with racing with the 60 cars and promote them.”

Dahl made it clear the 2015 S and V60 Polestar models would continue with the I6. Transition to the four-cylinder may not happen before the new generation SPA-based models arrive.

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