When Polestar still stood for a mud-fat Volvo S60 or V60 on petrol

History repeats itself: just as Polestar now makes a limited edition of a sporty top model, Volvo did the same in 2014 with the S60 and V60 Polestar. Now fifteen cars are coming to the Netherlands from a series of 270 units, at the time there were fifty from a series of 750.The S60/V60 was a car from a completely different era, when Polestar was still a solitary company dedicated to building Volvo’s sporty top models and preparing touring cars for racing. Volvo became the owner of Polestar in 2015, so after the Polestar discussed here was added to the S60/V60 range as the top model. You can immediately see from the specifications that this was really a different period.

Volvo screwed then – and that seems much longer ago than eight years – another whopper of a six-in-line right in the front of the middle class. One and a half times as large as what is now the norm and there was no electrical support yet. Polestar’s tuners had been tickling the T6 until it was willing to leave its standard 304PS and 440Nm behind and send 350PS and 500Nm to the front and rear wheels.

Last two years Polestar had a four-cylinder with 367 hp

Two years later, with the updated S60/V60, the six-cylinder was exchanged for a two-liter four-cylinder with even more power (367 hp), but also a little less torque (470 Nm). Very impressive, but the new Polestar 2 BST edition 270 offers much more here. Equally important then, as now, were the fitting of Öhlins dampers, which succeeded in turning the good-natured S60 into a capable track car. A direct comparison on the racetrack would be nice, to find out if the old world can counter the new by throwing its much smaller mass (half a ton difference) into battle. And to see to what extent the Polestargeist haunts the new electric model.

Nicely made with a 508 hp strong concept car

Incidentally, the S60 and V60 Polestar could have been even thicker. 508 hp and 580 Nm were the beautiful specifications of the S60 Polestar that was shown as a concept car in 2013; according to the builders, the top speed was even 300 km/h, the sprint to 100 km/h was only 3.9 seconds. We even drove that study once. That also applied to the fiercest Volvo C30 ever, the Polestar concept.

Such a thick Volvo S60 or V60 Polestar is still quite expensive. If you search for Volvo’s S60 or V60 until 2017 in the 301-400 hp power category in the used car range on the site, you will see prices from €35,000 to €50,000. Just filter out the ‘regular’ T6 versions.