Data collected from that run was “so important” that they kept it secret.
Polestar is to Volvo like what the M-Division is to BMW. It’s like the inner skunkworks of the Swedish marque, where all the engineers with a sense of humour live and make their wild engineering-fantasies come true. Polestar possesses such immense engineering capability that they can take comfortable, sedate, mature Volvo cars and turn them into rorty, snorty hooligan machines, like the S60 Polestar seen here.
However, while Polestar cars have always been very fast, they were always seen as being slightly off the pace. As it turns out, this isn’t at all true: Last year, a Volvo S60 Polestar “road car” broke the Nürburgring lap record for a four-door saloon, recording a time of 7-minutes and 51.110-seconds.
The exact vehicle that was used to achieve this record was only mentioned as a “road car,” suggesting that it was an unfettled model that you or I could pick up from a showroom (save for some high-performance tyres, perhaps). The fact that a lap record was set when they merely intended to gather data says a lot about the accessibility of the performance offered by the S60, and the engineering wizardry that lies behind that blue badge.
Of course, the S60 Polestar’s lap record has since been bested by the Honda Civic Type-R and the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, (the latter getting round the Green Hell almost 20-seconds faster). Another mystery in this is the engine under the bonnet, as it’s unclear if the record-breaking S60 Polestar was running the older 3.0-litre straight-six engine (good for 257kW/500Nm) or the newer 270kW/470Nm 2.0-litre four-pot Drive-E powerplant. Regardless, the fact that an S60 managed to haul itself with such speed and gusto around the fabled Nürburgring is nothing short of impressive.
A hot Volvo, anyone?
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