Fergal Sharkey had it right. Teenage dreams really are so hard to beat. The thing is that a lot of my teenage dreams were populated by Volvo estates. Hang on, it’s not as bad as it sounds. I wasn’t having fantasies of being an antiques dealer or a suburban Labrador breeder, honest. It’s just that as I was getting stuck into my teenage years, Volvo went a bit mad.
First, it launched the 850 saloon and estate, its first ever front-wheel-drive car. Then, to hammer home the point that Volvos really, honestly, if you just stop and listen, could be sporty, it created the T5 – a mental, turbo-charged nutter-Volvo that could suck the doors off most contemporary BMWs as it blew past.
I fell utterly in love with these boxy, square and sensible but ballistically-quick Swedes, especially when Volvo ratcheted-up the mickey-taking and entered a brace of 850 estates in the bruising, barging British Touring Car Championship. What wasn't to love, to be honest.
Since when, the T5 badge has been allowed to become somewhat softened. Oh, the turbo-charged engines are still there and the power outputs are more than healthy, it’s just that where once there was something barking mad about a Volvo T5, now it’s all gone a bit domesticated.
Take this V40 T5 R-Design Geartonic. All the right ingredients are there. The new 2.0-litre petrol turbo pumps out a storming 245hp – 15hp up on what you’d get in the hottest Golf GTI. There’s a chunky R-Design bodykit, with a meaty rear spoiler and a big diffuser under the boot, plus the menacing grey-black alloys that have been a T5 calling card since those first 850s.
Inside, you get wonderfully hug-ariffic leather seats, a beautifully designed and made dash, and the stick and paddle shifters for a cutting-edge eight-speed automatic gearbox, sourced from ZF. This is all looking pretty good.
Standard car
And yet, in the midst of the mixing, someone has left out the tabasco and put in green tea instead. It’s not that the V40 T5 is slow, because it certainly isn’t. Any car that can sprint from 0-100kmh in 6.3 seconds is pretty brisk in my book, and the engine is little short of fantastic, pulling beautifully through its eight gears and warbling with an occasional nod of the ear towards the musical five-cylinder turbos of old.
No, it’s just that the rest of the V40 feels too much like a standard V40.
Drive a Golf and then drive a Golf GTI, especially one with the optional Performance Pack, and you are left in no doubt that, though related, the two are very different cars. One is a family five-door, the other a practical Porsche.
The V40 T5 though just feels exactly the same as the standard car, only that the scenery goes past a bit quicker.
It has the same smooth, friction (and feel)-free steering, the same mostly supple, occasionally thumpy, suspension and the same safe and solid understeer when you push it. Get past the engine and there’s nothing left for the keen driver to lean against.
In an 850 T5, once you’d got past the colossal turbo lag, the damn thing would take off like a rocket and you’d feel as if you were grasping the tail-fins by your fingertips.
Polestar
Accelerate hard in the V40 T5 and the car goes faster, there’s a little tug of torque steer and that’s it. You may as well be in the D4 diesel. In fact, you’d be better off in the D4, because that’s a brilliant engine too, it’ll save you €100 a year on road tax, plus it’ll do 50-odd mpg compared to the T5’s 30-odd, has 50 more Nm of torque and, in spite of using the same gearbox and wearing the same chunky bodykit, it’s €2,000 cheaper.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the standard V40. In fact, it's a really good car – handsome, safe and decent to drive, and it gets closer to the likes of the Audi A3 and Mercedes A-Class than the Germans would care to admit. In fact, I think I'd prefer a V40 to either of those, and the BMW 1 Series.
But not the T5, it’s a car that can’t cash the cheques its badge (and, admittedly, my own hormonal memories) are writing.
There is hope though. Volvo now has its own in-house tuning-nutter brand; Polestar. Polestar is to Volvo as AMG is to Mercedes and M is to BMW. As a performance brand it still has some way to go to break into the public consciousness in the way the Germans have managed, but there’s promise aplenty.
And the T5’s now-tamed nature seems to indicate there’s room at the top of the V40 range for something a bit more lairy, even though I shudder to think what the price tag would be. After all, this V40 is already more expensive than a basic Golf GTI and you don’t even get parking sensors (necessary, given the poor rear visibility) or heated seats.
Still, if Polestar can work its magic, and create something closer to those teenage dreams of T5s, then maybe, to misquote John Peel, that’ll be so good, I think I’ll drive it again.
The lowdown: Volvo V40 T5 R-Design Geartronic
Price: €37,995 (pricing starts from €26,295).
Power: 245hp.
Torque: 350Nm.
0-100kmh: 6.3sec.
Top speed: 240kmh.
Claimed economy: 5.9l/100km. (48mpg)
CO2 emissions: 137g/km.
Motor tax: €280.
