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CAP Blog > CAP Blog > Martin's Blog
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Nov
18
Written by:
Martin Ward
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
On paper, this car should be a non-starter or even a non-mover. The diesel engine that is fitted to this car is also available in the Ford Fiesta and the S80 weighs in at 1586kg; about 560kg more than the Fiesta with the same engine.
 When we first heard that this car was coming, we were a little surprised and did wonder what Volvo were thinking about with this car. Going green is one thing, but producing a car that is going to struggle, despite its green credentials, doesn’t make sense and could potentially damage Volvo’s reputation. I went to the hometown of Volvo to drive the S80 DRIVe in Sweden on a very wet and foggy day and I can recommend that if you don’t have to go to Sweden at this time of year, then stay away if possible, as it is such a grey, grim place in mid November.
The S80 is a large four door saloon that is every bit a luxury car and competes in size with the 5 Series, E Class and A6. This comfortable car has a premium look and feel, the boot is large and it has plenty of standard features. It could be used as a chauffeur driven car or for executive travel, but having a 1.6 litre diesel engine fitted just doesn’t sound right for this type of car. The S80 DRIVe turbocharged diesel engine produces 109ps, goes from 0-62mph in 12.4 seconds and has a top speed of 118mph. This doesn’t sound very exciting does it?
 I drove the S80 on Volvo’s own test track at Hallerad so I was able to test it in safety and without any other traffic around. This is a pleasure normally reserved for when driving around in fast, exciting sports cars and not a big saloon car with a small engine. Now I have to eat humble pie, as this car is just amazing and very surprising. The figures on paper do not do it justice; whoever timed the 0-62mph time must have done it with a stop watch that had a dodgy battery, as I thought it to be much quicker than the quoted time of 12.4 seconds.
It is fitted with a five speed gearbox, but the fifth gear has a very high ratio and you have to keep it in fourth longer than normal to keep the momentum going. However, you soon get used to this and once in fifth, it happily cruised at 150kph on the track and was extremely quiet. If you have to slow down, you have to drop it down into fourth quicker than you would if it had a normal ratio gearbox and this seems acceptable.
 We did not get the chance to do a fuel consumption check but the official combined figure is 57.7 mpg. Recently Volvo organised a Milan to Marlow journey where the drivers had to get back on a tank full of fuel. Most of the participants achieved between 54 mpg and 63 mpg according to the on board computer, so this gives the DRIVe a range of around 900 miles.
It is not often I say this about a car but I think it is too cheap, or put it another way, it is really good value. The SE costs £22,245 and the highly specified SE Premium is priced at £24,245.
The S80 DRIVe has to be driven to be appreciated and may so easily be dismissed by potential buyers who will automatically think that the car is slow and underpowered, but it really is quite remarkable. It has a low CO2 emissions figure at 129g/km, so will appeal to companies and company car drivers. It may end up that the main problem with this car will be that you’ll have to struggle to get your hands on one, as I’m sure once people are aware of its presence in the market, its capabilities and the value for money, it will be a sought after machine in both the new and used markets.
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