The new Volvo S60 R to start production

The S60 R premiered at the Paris Motor Show late September this year, and performance car fans can look forward to the cars' arrival in the Middle East in 2003.

'With the popularity of performance cars in the Middle East, we are expecting a great deal of interest in the S60 R,' said Graham Carmichael, Regional Director- Volvo Car Overseas.

'Earlier this year we brought the S60 Challenge racing car to the region, with demonstrations by Hans Nilsson, R project leader. This racing car showed a side of Volvo many people in the region hadn't seen before, and the S60 R enables customers to enjoy Volvo's advanced performance in everyday driving,' he added.

The S60 delivers what the Performance Concept Car, first shown in Paris 2000, promised and is an intelligent high performance car with one of the world's most advanced active performance chassis, a 300 hp engine and electronically-controlled AWD.

Redefines the performance car concept
The Volvo S60 R redefines the performance car concept. Unlike any other car currently available, it combines two capabilities:


• The direct road contact of an extreme sports car.

• The everyday comfort requirements of a family car.

The secret is in the three discreet buttons on the dashboard, labelled Comfort, Sport and Advanced Sport. At the push of a button, the driver indicates how he wants to drive his S60 R. The intermediate setting, 'Sport', provides optimum performance during normal but sporty driving. Starting from this point, the driver also has the choice of two outer settings.
The 'Comfort' setting uses 'Sky Hook' technology to optimise the body's insulation against an uneven road surface. It is as if the car was suspended from virtual shock absorbers in the sky.

The 'Advanced sport' setting transforms the Volvo S60 R into an uncompromising sports car which prioritises maximum driving pleasure and direct road contact.

Exclusive interior
The Volvo design team has been considerably bolder in planning the interior. The first things to catch a driver's eye are the four clear blue, silver-framed instruments, a design reminiscent of an exclusive watch.

The three-spoke leather-clad steering wheel has a slightly elliptical section to ensure an excellent grip. The leather details are stitched in blue, reflecting the colour scheme of the instruments.

The deep-contoured sports seats in the Volvo S60 R are available in exclusive untreated aniline leather as an option, a natural leather which means that the interior, with time, takes on a completely individual patina.

Striking exterior
The external design of the Volvo S60 R is typically restrained and functional.

'There is nothing which doesn't fulfil a function, no unnecessary design clutter,' says Peter Horbury, Vice President and Chief Designer at Volvo Cars. One example is the rear spoiler of the Volvo S60 R: 'Some people might think that it's rather too discreet, but its task is to reduce the rear lifting forces by 20 percent - and it does precisely that.'

The Volvo S60 R has a completely new front, with larger air intakes and spoiler to provide effective cooling of the engine, and two intercoolers. The black eggcrate grill is a unique feature on the S60 R. It has a matt silver edge, and this colour theme is also picked up in the framing of the Bi-Xenon headlights.

300 hp and 0-100 km/h in 5.8 seconds
The Volvo S60 R comes with a turbocharged 2.5 litre, 5-cylinder engine which provides 300 hp and 400 Nm at 2,100 rpm. A Volvo S60 R with manual gearbox accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 5.8 seconds (preliminary figure) and has a top speed which is electronically limited to 250 km/h.

The compact 6-gear manual box has been newly developed by Volvo Cars and the 5-stage automatic gearbox is the Geartronic type, providing optional manual gear changing.

The brakes of the Volvo S60 R match the performance of the rest of the car. The four-piston Brembo brake callipers are made of aluminium. The front brake discs have a diameter of a full 330 mm and are 32 mm thick. The corresponding figures for the rear brake discs are 330 mm and 28 mm. This gives the Volvo S60 R a braking distance of 36 meters from 100 - 0 km/h.

Four-C Technology
What gives the driver this freedom of choice is the unique Four-C Technology, the Continuously Controlled Chassis Concept. It is the Four-C Technology's ability to collect large amounts of information on the movement of the car, and adjust the dampening of the shock absorbers extremely quickly, which makes the chassis on the Volvo S60 R one of the most advanced on the market.

The system then very rapidly adjusts the damping on the shock absorbers and the electronic control of the AWD system. Every other millisecond, i.e. 500 times per second, Four-C updates the setting on each shock absorber, on the basis of continuous information on the car's speed, the movement of the wheels and chassis, and the position of the steering wheel.

Four-C Technology is the result of a long-term collaboration with Öhlins Racing AB, one of the world's foremost developers of high-tech shock absorbers, and the shock absorber manufacturer Monroe.

The Volvo S60 R has electronically-controlled all-wheel drive. The AWD system is combined with Four-C Technology, and optimises road-holding and stability. Like Four-C, the AWD system is connected to the car's Multiplex computer system, and can, therefore, handle large quantities of information. With its extremely short engagement and disengagement time, the AWD system can react immediately to the position of the accelerator and the torque of the engine.

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