Volvo C30
£16,795
Miles per gallon: 57.6
Seats: 4
Good for: Saints
Bad for: Sinners
'Fun' and 'Volvo' are two words which don't often rub shoulders in the same sentence. On the one hand we have hands-in-the-air merriment, on the other the vehicular equivalent of an online tax return. For decades, the Swedish car company has steadily stripped away all joy from their cars, leaving them safe, reliable and robust. But not exactly a bundle of laughs. The closest Volvo has come to cracking a smile was last summer, when they decided to fit an incongruous folding roof on to one of their sturdy family saloons. The result was certainly funny, but not for any of the right reasons. Now, seemingly from nowhere, those deadpan designers have come over all frivolous and produced the perky, lovable and irresistibly charming C30.
So why is the C30 so different? For a start, it only has two doors. Big deal, you may think, but it's an overt statement that this car is not aimed at the usual Volvo market (family man, harassed wife, snot-nosed kids and drooling Lab). It is instead hoping to lure the young, urban, design-literate, first-time Volvo buyer into its leathery embrace.
It is still a Volvo, though, so don't go thinking they've been at the laughing gas. As you would expect, it has four sensible seats. It is roomy. It is well built - it boasts all the four-square solidity of an Anderson shelter. It comes with enough airbags to make a bouncy castle envious. It has seat-belt pre-tensioners and a galaxy of passive safety features. But the makers are clearly expecting such an upturn in the levels of driver enjoyment that they have taken the precaution of installing an Intelligent Driver Information System (IDIS). This continuously monitors the car's progress and if it decides you too are busy dealing with a tricky hairpin, say, or braking savagely to foil a speed camera, it will delay all other non-essential alerts from being flashed at you. After all, do you really need to know that your oil change is due in 12,000 miles right now?
Volvo is keen on its acronyms. There's the familiar Side-Impact Protection System (SIPS); the Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS) and also the Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) - though Sips, Whips and Blis does sound like a destination club on Manchester's Canal Street. Party time...
From the front, the C30 looks, unfortunately, much like the rest of its Volvo siblings, and features the usual pit-bull nose. From the back, though, the C30 has been jollied up. Rather than Volvo's regular train-buffer bumpers and no-nonsense lights, the car has an elegantly curved glass door which swoops into its sporty haunches. It's a real eye catcher.
Eight different engines are on offer, the top performer being the 2.4i. I, however, opted for the frugal 1.6-litre diesel, which produces an ethically pleasing 58 miles to the gallon. Sensation, it seems, but good sense, too.
Stylistically, the C30 takes much of its inspiration from the iconic Volvo P1800 which you may remember Roger Moore driving in The Saint in the Sixties. So, fun... and cool. Now that really is a U-turn.
