Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £16,245 to £21,360
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.
This is a Volvo speciality, of course, and the company makes much of the fact that the snub-nosed C30, S40 and V50 absorb frontal impacts as effectively as a bigger Volvo, despite their shared-with-Ford underpinnings. Different grades of steel are designed to control deformation in front and rear impacts, and side impacts are absorbed by SIPS (Side Impact Protection System, an arrangement of progressively collapsing crossbars under the seat mountings) plus side and curtain airbags.
All four seatbelts have pre-tensioners, and the front seats have anti-whiplash headrests which move forward in a rear impact. ESP is standard; you can reduce the degree of its intervention via the control menu, but you can't switch it off completely.
All this has added up to - of course - a full five-star score in the Euro NCAP crash tests for overall adult occupant safety, and the full four out of four for child protection. Just one star for pedestrian protection, though - best be in a C30 than hit by one.
The security system includes buttons on the keyfob for hazard flashers and follow-me-home headlights. (The old 480, incidentally, was the first car with the follow-me-home feature, back in 1986.)
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volvo C30
wrote on 23 07 2007