Volvo just set me loose on a live airstrip in British Columbia, Canada and said I’ll have to get off quickly if a plane comes in to land. Great, I’ll just watch the sky and the pavement in front of me at the same time.
The 22-way adjustable Öhlin dampers are cranked down to 6 in the front and 9 in the back. The front end feels overly tight and jittery over every crack on the broken pavement leading to the runway. There’s no way I could live with the shocks at these settings on public roads, but on the airstrip the setup keeps the vehicle I’m in stable through a slalom course at nearly 40 mph with nearly no front-end dive upon hard braking.
That vehicle is a 2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered. That’s right, I’m driving a crossover SUV with manually adjustable dampers.
While Polestar is no longer an in-house operation at Volvo, it still works closely with the Swedish automaker to amp up the dynamics of Volvos a few notches.
For 2020, the Polestar team worked its magic on the XC60 to create the 2020 XC60 T8 Polestar Engineered crossover SUV with more power, bigger brakes, and adjustable suspension. The result is one of the best-looking mid-size crossovers available today and a truly sporty SUV that few will own.
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
Just look at it
The Polestar Engineered XC60 starts with the R Design’s gloss-black accents and mesh grille, and widens the body with wheel-arch extensions. Each corner is up to 20 mm wider than the standard XC60. Twenty-one-inch wheels fill the wells as the stock choice, and sharp 22-inch machine-cut forged aluminum wheels are an option I would advise against (more on that later).
Inside, the gorgeous XC60 gets subtle changes to make the elegant yet simple interior appear sportier. The highlight is the gold seat belts, but the soft nappa leather seats and mesh metal trim add to the ambience.
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
The Polestar touch
The future of performance is electrified and Polestar’s gone that route with the XC60 Polestar Engineered. It starts with Volvo’s T8 plug-in powertrain, which consists of a turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-liter inline-4 teamed with an electric motor and 8-speed automatic transmission. The tuning has been remapped by Polestar to increase output from 400 to 415 horsepower, though it loses a single pound-foot of torque to come in at 494 lb-ft.
The aforementioned Öhlins dampers are adjustable 22 ways and look like works of automotive art. All four can be adjusted with the simple turn of a knob, the fronts under the hood at the strut towers and the rears by popping a rubber cap off the knob in the rear fender wells.
The Polestar team also added a strut-tower brace to keep things from twisting while massive Akebono drilled brake rotors with gold 6-piston brake calipers are there to slow things down quickly.
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
Missing the feels
The hardware is in place, but the work Polestar did doesn’t translate in terms of feel or immediacy. Mash the accelerator from a standstill and there’s a split-second pause as the electronics and powertrain sort themselves out, then the rear end squats and the mass of Swedish metal takes off in a hurry. Nearly 500 pound-feet of torque will do that.
Volvo says the XC60 T8 Polestar Engineered can sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds. Between the crossover SUV’s mass of 4,747 pounds and the plug-in hybrid powertrain’s hesitation, it doesn’t feel as quick as advertised (though 0-60-mph times are measured once a vehicle gets rolling, not when the throttle pedal is pressed).
The Polestar XC60 can be efficient, too. When driving with a light foot the hybrid powertrain can stay in all-electric mode until the battery pack’s electrons are exhausted depending on the load around town. Roll the powertrain mode selector to Polestar and the gas engine never shuts off (it even disables auto start-stop), which turns the XC60 into a powerful hybrid regardless of the battery’s state of charge.
The electric power steering doesn’t provide a lot of information to the driver about what’s going on at the wheels, but it’s accurate and light around town.
2020 Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered
The drilled Akebono brakes and 6-piston calipers that sit so proudly behind my tester’s 22-inch wheels imply immense braking power. However, both on the street and during a 92-mph stopping maneuver on the airstrip, the pedal feels wooden with zero initial bite, no progression, and no feedback indicating how much braking is being applied. It appears to be a tuning issue that was chosen as an overreaction to feedback received about the S60 Polestar Engineered that was launched earlier in the year. At the time, many people felt the brakes were too grabby.
For the street drive, the Volvo team sets the Öhlin dampers to 12, nearly the middle ground and probably ideal for day-to-day driving though they come set from the factory at 10 all around. They can’t overcome the drawbacks of the 22-inch wheels, though, as they crash over every expansion joint, crack, or grate on the road. Opt for the standard 21-inch wheels and save $800.
Priced from $72,045 including destination, the XC60 T8 Polestar Engineered is downright expensive. Add in my tester’s metallic paint for $645, 22-inch wheels for $800, and the sticker price is $73,490.
With only 300 XC60 Polestar Engineered models coming to the U.S. per year (that’s about one per dealership), this will be one rare Swede. If the unique 22-way dampers don’t do it, that alone might be enough to gain the interest of enthusiasts and anyone else looking for a plug-in hybrid crossover SUV with nearly 500 lb-ft of torque.
Volvo provided travel and lodging to Internet Brands Automotive to bring you this firsthand review.
