Late last year Volvo quietly discontinued its C30 hatchback from the market, with nary a mention of a reason why or a possible replacement.
It’s likely the fact that Volvo only managed to sell around 4,500 C30s annually in the U.S., which, understandably, is not nearly enough to justify its presence in the automaker’s lineup and probably goes some way towards explaining why we’re also missing out on the latest V40 hatch.
The C30 only hit these shores in 2007 but the world actually got its first look at the car as far back as 2001, when Volvo unveiled its Safety Car Concept (SSC).
The design of the original concept was retained remarkably well for the C30 that would eventually debut in 2006 and reach the U.S. just one year later.
Since then the C30 has undergone a series of updates, and most recently we saw the launch of a limited edition performance variant built by Volvo tuner Polestar. The Swedish motorsport and engineering group has now released this tribute video to give the C30 a proper farewell.
Polestar has had great success racing the C30 in various touring car events overseas. A C30 earned Polestar drivers a Scandinavian Touring Car Championship back in 2010 and also a win in the 2011 season of the World Touring Car Championship.
The story of that success is outlined in the video above.
