The C70 – Topless Model from Volvo
Volvo is getting ‘younger’ by going topless with the C70, its hardtop convertible. At the touch of a button, the boot opens up, the roof ‘breaks’ up into many pieces, and then miraculously folds neatly into the boot area, after which the boot closes over it, and voila, you have an open top roadster. It all takes about 28 seconds for the whole operation, and is always a wonder to behold. Kids and adults alike are enthralled by the spectacle, and in the five days that I had the C70, this feature was an attention grabber, especially in places like Terengganu, where such convertibles are a rare sight.
At first glance, you might easily mistake the C70 for any other Volvo sedan, as the front is very ‘Volvo’ with the characteristic Volvo grille, the protruding front nose, and a silhouette that is very familiarly Volvo. The fact that it is a convertible might just slip by you without you ever knowing it; you would think the C70 is just another 2-door sporty model from the Volvo stables. If you didn’t look closely enough, you might even mistake it for another one of those Volvos you see running around town.
Most of the time, in this hot and humid environment, you would be driving with the top up, but every once in a while, if the weather permits, running with the top down, with the wind blowing through your hair would be an experience in itself, not to mention the admiring glances from those around you.
The Volvo C 70 seats four adults comfortably; it has the size, but still looks compact. The interior is very Volvo, complete with the ultra-thin centre dash that has become synonymous with the current generation of Volvos, and of course leather upholstery, contoured seats with electric controls, and all the other stuff that is standard in every Volvo, including the passive safety features. Even the A pillar is massive to make sure that it can take a roll-over without deforming, which is something that one would expect and get from these people who are so fastidious about safety.
With the fuel prices at its current level, I just had to check just how many kilometres I could get out of a tank of petrol, and I did just that; a dash to the east coast for some work was a good reason to bring the C70 there, and the results are quite surprising. To be fair to Volvo, I drove the car in the same manner as Joe Average would drive it – reasonably gentle acceleration, keeping generally within the speed limits, (and exceeding it a few times inadvertently), and flooring it sometimes when overtaking. The good news is, I managed to clock a distance of 500.4 kilometres on RM137.00 of petrol, filling up the tank to the brim at Dungun. That works out to 27.4 sen a kilometre, and at today’s price of petrol, it is a highly respectable figure, especially for a turbo charged engine of 2.5 litre capacity, and with an automatic transmission.
With 230 horsepower, and a zero to 100 km/h acceleration of between 7.8 to 8.0 seconds, the Volvo C70 designers seem to have struck a balance between power and economy. Part of the secret is the very tall gear ratio in fifth gear, which has the engine turning at 2,000 rpm at the highway regulation speed of 110 km/h. Of course, if you put pedal to metal all the time, the fuel consumption figures would go up, but what I achieved was very ‘real world’ and users of this car can expect the same, or better if they drove it normally.
Top speed is mooted at 235 km/h for the T5 in automatic form, and the manual transmission goes a little faster at 240 km/h. Of course, in the course of my test drive, I never got to that level, since i figured that Joe Average would never go anywhere near this speed; I did at one stage hit something close to 200 km/h, but that was on a very short stage, when the road was dead straight, and there was no other traffic in sight.
The four wheel independent suspension is set on the comfortable side of firm, and even with the 17-inch, 45 series low profile tyres, the ride was comfortable. Over the windy section between Bukit Tinggi and Bentong along the old road, it handled quite well; not sporty and firm, but decently and poised. It is not as planted as a true blue sports car would be, but it won’t give up a position easily if push came to shove. It is designed for high speed cruising and relaxed driving, and I think that the balance is pretty good. Steering is precise, and handling, for all practical intents and purposes, would be quite neutral if the speed is kept decent. Hard pushing would result in some body roll, but the C 70 will track quite well. Anyway, if you make a mistake, DSTC (Dynamic Stability and Traction Control) will take over and cut down engine power, and do what it is designed to do to put you back on track. And in the tradition of Volvo safety, there are two pop-up ROPS (Roll Over Protection System) bars behind the rear seat to help prevent you from getting shorter in case you roll over.
We had a bit of trouble getting the roof down for a while, until we found out that Volvo had built in another safety feature into the convertible roof mechanism; you have to have your foot on the brake pedal before it will respond to the switching mechanism. Look around the interior, and you will see numerous air bags and inflatable curtains. It is a private joke amongst me and some of my friends that if you ever roll over in a Volvo, it is very safe, but you might die form being suffocated by the airbags. (Just remember that this is a joke, and is not true. You will definitely appreciate the fact that there are so many airbags, if something like that actually happens).
At the end of the test drive session, it was a painful separation between me and the C70 I certainly would have liked to keep it a little longer. It is quite uncommon to get a car that can be frugal in fuel consumption, and be able at the same time to extract sporty performance out of it. The retail price is just under RM400k, more than a little out of my league, but perhaps one day, when import duties in this country are more on par with the rest of the world…………..
