Volvo S40 RANGE
Volvos S40 Is A Car In Need Of A Market. The Swedes Trust That We Know A Good Thing When We See One. By Andy Enright
Sony flew in the face of the conventional rules of marketing back in 1979 with the introduction of the Walkman personal stereo. The brainchild of company founder Masaru Ibuka, the Walkman created a market sector where none had existed before, despite being initially rejected by sceptical Sony sales staff.
Volvo hopes to do a similar thing here in the UK with the latest S40, offering a premium compact saloon with genuine appeal.
Note the terminology here: a Premium Compact Saloon is, Volvo have decided, rather different to a genuine Compact Executive Saloon like a
BMW 3 Series, an
Audi A4 or, yes, a Volvo S60, cars which also battle with Jaguars X-Type, Saabs 9-3 and Mercedes C-class. People who couldnt afford to pick up the keys to one of these should have been buying Volvos old S40 but they werent. Hence the all-new model were looking at here. And the invention of yet another niche market sector for it to pioneer.
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In terms of rivals, probably the closest thing you could pitch against this new, edgier, more dynamic S40 is Volkswagens Bora, a car which has always rather under-achieved in the UK. Not that the lack of prior sales success for cars of this kind has put off Henrik Otto, Volvos Head of Design. He may sound like a Bond villain but this determined Swede has his own plans for global domination and none of them involve death rays from space or poison gases. He notes that if you want to be innovative, theres little point in looking at what the competition is doing.
You will, he reckons, be far more productive looking at what theyre not doing. The
Volvo S40s interior pays testament to his claims. All too often, we hear about innovations in car design and what we really get is moderately incremental changes. The S40 features a number of styling touches which weve genuinely never seen before.
The exterior wont get too many pulses racing, effectively resembling a shrunken S60, but the cabin is a delight. Volvo interiors are traditionally odd things. Although they work supremely well, they are often clunkily designed with scant regard for the sort of slickness that separates them from rivals. Little of the design flair we usually associate with the Scandinavians has traditionally seemed to translate into their cars.
The spaceball gear selector in the S60 showed that Volvo could come up with some neat ideas and the S40 takes the spaceball and runs with it. The key design feature is a centre console thats a softly contoured moulding featuring supremely easy to use controls and fresh air behind it. You can specify wood, aluminium, plastic or semi-transparent plastic finishes and everybody who gets in will notice it. This is probably the neatest interior design feature weve come across since the
Audi TT was launched.
Like the TTs cabin. the S40s feels like it has just rolled off a motor show stand.
"The S40s cabin feels like it has just rolled off a motor show stand"
The range opens with 1.6 petrol and diesels with a 1.8 petrol and a 2.0-litre 136bhp diesel, stepping up to a 170bhp 2.
4-litre five-cylinder petrol and is topped off by another five, this time the searing 220bhp T5. As youd expect, the S40 rides on the same basic chassis set up as its estate counterpart, the V50, but it also shares the same underpinnings as other
Ford group models like the Ford Focus C-MAX and the Mazda3, as well as forthcoming cars like Volvos XC50 compact 4x4 and Land Rovers sub-Freelander baby. Thats not to say the S40 is simply a rebodied Focus. Although the underbody, subframes and suspension layouts are the same on all these models, theres vast scope for tuning of individual aspects so all will drive differently.
Volvo havent skimped when it comes to safety, and they claim that the S40 is as good to crash in as the flagship S80 saloon. Making a small car as safe as a big un takes some doing and its only when you look at some of the finer points of how Volvo have achieved this that you realise quite what this commitment means. It involves casting the turbo housing as one with the exhaust manifold so that the engine is more compact when mounted transversely, giving more space for crush zones. It means developing the Intelligent Driver Information System which monitors how hard youre using the throttle, brakes and steering and will hold incoming telephone calls or satellite navigation instructions until things have calmed down so as not to distract you in the middle of a manoeuvre.
It means using four different grades of high tensile steel for crash protection. Would the S40 look a little sexier with
BMW-style flame-surfaced concave flanks? Probably. But side impact protection involves having as much deformation space as possible which is why its slab-sided to keep its occupants looking good. Prices start at £15,503 for the 1.
6 petrol. You pay £17,868 for the S specification 2.0-litre diesel with the 2.4-litre S model weighing in at £19,018.
Youll need to add £2,350 to these prices for ritzier SE trim, a further £1,800 to secure a Sport and £1,900 on top of that to get an SE Sport. The range-topping T5 model is priced from £23,568. The S40 T5 feels recognisably Volvo at the wheel with a strong, characterful engine and handling thats safe rather than spine-tingling. The turbocharger runs at a modest level of compression which means that torque is spread widely across the rev band.
Drop the throttle at 1500rpm in almost any gear and youll get clean acceleration without bogging, hiccupping or any unseemly lunging. The only clue that it is a turbocharged engine comes in the form of a mild underbonnet whistle in the midrange and a slight mushiness to the accelerator pedal when you blip the throttle. The T5 will notch off the sprint to 60mph in just 6.5 seconds and run on to 150mph.
This would seem to promise great things if Volvo ever created an S40R, although recent experience with the underwhelming S60R tempers the enthusiasm a little. Fast Volvos rarely hit the mark and after sampling the 170bhp 2.4-litre model, theres little to modify that opinion. This engine will still get to 60mph in 7.
9 seconds but needs a bit more work to do so. Despite this, with taller tyres and less torque steer to contend with, the 170bhp car feels a good deal more composed and unruffled than its slingshot sibling. It would doubtless damn the S40 with faint praise to even mention its predecessor, but its worth pausing to consider just what a massive leap forward the S40 is. The key issue is whether there exists a viable market for this sort of car.
If there is, the S40 will flush it out.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: Volvo S40 range
PRICES: £15,503-£25,468 on the road
INSURANCE GROUPS: 10-15
CO2 EMISSIONS: 129-208g/km
PERFORMANCE: [T5] Max Speed 150mph / 0-60mph 6.8s
FUEL CONSUMPTION: [T5] (combined) 32.5mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front and curtain airbags, WHIPS seats, side impact protection system
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height, 4468/1770/1452mm
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