Volvo V60 T8 Twin Engine Polestar Engineered 2019 review

These cars also get glossy black exterior trim, dark chrome exhaust tips, alloy wheels that look as though they could cut you, and gold seatbelts. And in the flesh, the V60 Polestar Engineered is duly one of the cars that simultaneously blends in while absolutely standing out. It's another knockout from the company whose CEO was formerly head of design.

But the headline additions are the adjustable dual-flow-valve dampers brought in from Swedish suspension superstars Öhlins. And it’s important to make the distinction between ‘adaptive’ and ‘adjustable’. The characteristics of the former are usually altered at the touch of a button handily positioned on the transmission tunnel. On the Polestar Engineered V60 tested here, however, softening the damping characteristics involves opening the bonnet and twisting a pair of gold dials sprouting from the strut towers. And that’s the easy bit: to get at those for the rear axle, you’ll need to jack the car up and remove the protective rubber covers. Talk about esoteric appeal.

Now, the dampers themselves. They can be moved through 22 clicks, with position zero the firmest. Bury deep enough into the digital owner’s manual, accessed via the 9.0in touchscreen, and you can even find some official recommendations. The default factory setting calls for position six at the front and nine at the rear. There are also suggestions for comfort (12 and 15, respectively) and performance (two and four), although the same manual contradicts itself by also recommending that the front and rear axles always be set to the same position.

Ultimately it's not clear, and you're expected to play around. In fact, if you buy one of these cars and don’t at least once set the front to 22 and the rear to zero, you're probably not the target customer. 

As for a set-and-forget combination, it's best to stick to bigger numbers for British roads and certainly avoid any single-figure digits. The factory setting is simply too firm although, this being Öhlins, it’s rarely brittle. Again, this is an important distinction. These dampers deliver a level of control and precision so palpable that it can be easily appreciated even as you’re being shaken about as if someone had swapped in the chassis from the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ but left the estate body. The movements are abrupt and often too punishing for a car like this, but you could never say they were brutal, as you would of the C-Class AMGs in their most uncompromising suspension modes.  

We didn’t have time to get the car jacked up and start fiddling with the rear dampers, but we did play with those at the front, where anything between 18 and the maximum 22 seems to work best on the road and just about saves the V60 Polestar Engineering's skin as an everyday proposition. The improvement in ride quality is marked, in fact, the immediacy of the movements dissipating but the control and precision lingering on. And if you drive exclusively on challenging A-roads at speeds just above the national limit, I'd say there's not a comparable car in terms of practicality and performance that rides with this much polish, although outright agility clearly remains a somewhat abstract concept for Volvo. 

That's where the other £60,000 performance estates really get the better of the V60 Polestar Engineered. They can't drive 25 miles on electric power alone, or glide into any environment in such unassuming fashion, but their motorway ride is certainly no worse and they would simply drive away from the Volvo on any road and in any conditions with a combination muscle, lateral grip and even more confidence-inspiring controls. Luscious vertical body control simply isn't enough to elevate the Volvo.