Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £16,250 to £23,495
Clever mix of Volvo design and three-door hatchback compactness, airy cabin, quick but quiet, strong grip, confident handling and disciplined ride, well finished and well-equipped, five-star NCAP crash test score.
Jerky manual downshifts in auto versions, no paddle-shifts, tiny glovebox, sliding electric front seats for rear access are slow and have no memory.
Volvo virtues in a sporty hatchback make an alluring combination. It's the first 'affordable' Volvo in years to appeal to the heart.
People like premium products. Branding counts for far more than logic says it should, otherwise no-one would buy an Audi A3 and Volkswagen would sell more Golfs. So a new premium compact hatchback, from a company new to the sector, is great news for those looking for the automotive equivalent of a new designer label.
The Volvo C30 is that new car, designed to steal buyers from the A3, the BMW 1-Series and the Alfa 147 (or its replacement). Its mission for Volvo is to get younger people into Volvo ownership, increase overall Volvo sales - because most C30 buyers won't have had a Volvo before - and help reduce the average CO2 emissions across the Volvo range. It will be billed as a cool car for people with active urban lifestyles and the promise of a successful career with an ever-rising income. It's marketing baloney, of course, but that comes as standard with every new car.
In essence the C30 is an S40 saloon with 22cm chopped off the tail, reclothed in a three-door body with all-new external sheet metal. It's strictly a four-seater, with individual rear seats set closer together than the front seats so their occupants have a good view forward. It's a happy result of the styling with its broad rear shoulders and a roofline which narrows towards the tail. The rear hatch is made entirely of glass, as it was on the ill-starred Volvo 480 which was a similar type of car made by Volvo's former Dutch arm from 1986 to 1994.
The C30 isn't made in Sweden either. It comes out of Volvo's factory in Ghent, Belgium, alongside the S40 and V50 with which it shares underpinnings derived from the Ford Focus. The engines are the same, too. The 100bhp 1.6 and 125bhp 1.8 are from the Ford Zetec family, the 145bhp 2.0 is a Mazda-derived unit, while the five-cylinder engines are Volvo's own and come in 170bhp 2.4 and 220bhp T5 2.5-litre forms, the latter with a turbo and much the same engine as used in Ford's Focus ST. Diesels are a 1.6/109bhp, a 2.0/136bhp (both familiar Ford/PSA units) plus a 2.4-litre, five-cylinder, D5 turbodiesel.
Trim levels are S, SE, SE Lux and SE Sport, this last one with flared-out sills and valances and a bigger tailgate spoiler. One colour scheme offered is pearlescent white with metallic brown sills and arches, much like the C30 concept car shown in Detroit last January. Among the personalisation options are different finishes for the 'floating' centre console, including an etched-aluminium 'surf' pattern of waves.
