New Volvo hot hatch

Volvo has redesigned its C30 hot hatch.

The good news is that there’s a new sport chassis option that ‘gives the C30 a significantly sharper ride’, apparently. The springs are 30 per cent stiffer while there’s also a lower steering ratio, boosting ‘wheel responses to make the car a more dynamic overall package. It sounds good to us – while we were big fans of our C30 T5 long termer, it was never the last word in handling compared to hot hatch rivals.

The sports chassis will come as standard with R-design equipped cars (pictured, red on white background), the styling package being picked by around 80 per cent of C30 owners in the UK so far.

Visually, the tweaks for the new C30 are fairly small. It gains a bolder front end to match the updated C70 (and in turn the new S60 sports saloon), while it features a new honeycomb grille that's unique to the C30.

Engine choices remain the same, with three diesel options – from a 108bhp 1.6-litre to the five-cylinder 178bhp D5 – and three petrols – a 99bhp 1.6, 143bhp 2-litre and the range-topping T5. It shares its 2.5-litre five-cylinder unit with the Focus ST and Focus RS, and in the C30 it’s in 227bhp/236lb ft tune.

The new C30 will make its debut at next week’s Frankfurt motor show before production begins in November. Expect small price rises over the existing car, the range of which costs between £15,495 and £21K.

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