New Volvo S80: Usual German suspects beware

Newswheel staff :: 31 January 2006 :: Filed under Saloon, Volvo, Volvo S80, Europe & UK, US,

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New clothes and engines, including a V8

Evolution. Not revolution. That’s the new S80. Revealed yesterday in these first official images, Volvo’s latest range-topper is no Bangle-esque exercise in outside-of-the-box automotive design. But it’s sleek, attractive and just an extremely polished looking all round effort. Add in a respectable helping of new technology as well as some interesting engines and surely Volvo finally has the goods to take on the Teutonic trio of Audi, BMW and Mercedes?

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The new S80 will be officially debagged at the Geneva auto show at the end of Feb. For now, we’ll have to settle for these pictures and some technical details. It would be easy to dismiss the styling of the new car as merely a well-executed update. But side by side, the old car suddenly looks horribly dated and ill proportioned. That’s always a good indication of a successful new design.

New versus old. It’s derivative, but so much more stylish.

Engine-wise, two significant new units join the range. The first is the Yamaha-sourced V8, already seen in Volvo’s XC90 SUV and effectively a known quantity. It’s a 4.4-litre lump knocking out 315bhp and should give the S80 the big-engined credibility it needs to take on the likes of BMW’s 5 Series, the Audi A6 and of course the E from M-B.  The V8 comes as standard with four-wheel.
 
Much more interesting is the new all-alloy straight six. Despite displacing 3.2 litres and cranking out a useful 235bhp, it’s an extremely compact unit. In fact, it’s just a tenth of an inch longer than Volvo’s existing in-line five. That’s handy given the fact that the new S80 carries over the transverse engine installation of the previous car. Technical highlights include the usual variable valve timing and variable inlet manifold gubbins. Though designed in-house at Volvo, it will be built at Ford’s Bridgend facility in Wales, alongside various Jag engines. Though not quite as impressive on paper as BMW’s awesome magnesium-block in-line six (BMW’s finest is lighter and produces around 25bhp more from a smaller capacity), this new lump would, incidentally, still make a pretty good starting point for a new generation of straight-six Jaguar engines. So, here’s hoping the big cat dumps those Duratec V6s. Filling out the S80’s engine line-up are Volvo’s familiar turbo-charged five-cylinder 200bhp petrol and 185bhp diesel units.

Volvo’s new straight-six. Appearing soon in a Jaguar near you?

Like any new Volvo, the S80 boasts bags of safety features. Most notable are Brake Support, more or less identical to M-B’s Brake Assist which boosts pressure during an emergency braking manoeuvre, and Collision Warning, which pretty much does exactly what it says on the tin. A buzzer is sounded and a warning is shown on the windscreen via a head-up display when the S80’s proximity sensors reckon the end is nigh.

Inside, the S80 is the usual classy and understated Swedish affair and receives its own take on the “floating” centre console first seen on the Ford Focus-based S40. Keyless entry and drive is provided as part of Volvo’s new Personal Car Communicator system (PCC). Volvo says PCC also offers the ability to remotely check whether the car is locked or if the alarm has been activated and - get this – detect whether anyone is in the car courtesy of a heartbeat sensor. For now, we haven’t had the full spiel on how PCC works - ie, exactly how and when the car’s status information can be checked -  but we’ll assume it functions over existing mobile telephony networks.

Volvo’s signature “floating” centre console makes another appearence.

While the interior and exterior styling are all-new, it’s also not yet clear whether the S80 has inherited the old model’s underpinnings. However, given Volvo’s modest sales targets (CEO Frederik Arp reckons 50,000 units worldwide would be a good effort) and the same-again transverse engine installation, it’s unlikely to be a clean-sheet design. But that doesn’t stop us from being genuinely excited about the prospect of taking the svelte new S80 for a hoon. Refreshing to be saying that about a Volvo…

The S80 goes on sale around June / July in the UK.