First look: Volvo gets RRRacy

HERE'S a car Volvo hopes will push your buttons, while you're pushing its.

You're looking at the hot-rod S60 R, the performance king of the S60 range - complete with 220kW turbocharged engine, all-wheel drive and a push-button chassis control system.

That's right, at the push of a button the driver can select one of three modes for how the S60 R will behave, and the names are self-explanatory - Comfort, Sport and Advanced Sport.

The S60 R and its buttons will make their world debut at the Paris motor show in September, along with the V70 R wagon sister car. They won't go on sale in Australia until the second half of 2003 at a price at or beyond $100,000.

And if a hot Volvo is what turns you on then you'll have to be quick, because a combined total of just 50 new-generation R-cars will be imported next year, re-igniting a car-line first seen here in the 1990s with the 850 R wagon.

And while the numbers are small, Volvo Car Australia managing director Alwin Popken says the S60 R in particular can do a lot to boost the company's stagnant sales and conservative image here.

"I think it can do a lot for the range with which we offer it and have enormous spin-off effects," Mr Popken said. "In terms of image I think product is the best argument you can have.

"I have heard every week the stigma and some of the jokes around Volvo here in Australia and I think sometimes just a car can do much better than 1000 words."The S60 R and the V70 R will debut at Paris two years after the same show saw the first appearance of the Volvo Performance Car Concept, which previewed the technology we are seeing here.

Much of the R is orthodox if highly-tuned. The five-cylinder 2.5-litre turbo-charged and twin-intercoooled engine produces 220kW and 400Nm, the latter from a low 2100rpm (no rpm figure has been supplied for maximum kilowatts).

Fitted with a newly-developed six-speed gearbox, Volvo says the S60 R will accelerate to 100km/h in 5.8 seconds, but no figures are supplied if the Geartronic five-speed auto option is selected.

More impressive is the 100-0km/h braking claim of just 36 metres courtesy of massive 330mm discs and aluminium four-piston Brembo brake callipers.

So to the chassis and its push-button technology called Four-C, short for Continuously Controlled Chassis Concept. Basically, enormous computing power, advanced shock absorbers and all-wheel drive make the system possible.

The multiplex computer system adjusts the damper settings on the shocks - developed with the assistance of suspension experts Ohlins and Monroe - 500 times a second and also controls the electronic four-wheel drive system.

Press the button on the dashboard and the system does the rest. One milli-second it's a comfortable family car, the next a sharp-edged sports sedan - or so the theory goes. No wonder Volvo claims the S60 R is the most advanced model it has ever manufactured.

All this is clothed pretty conservatively. The S60 R has a completely new front with larger air intakes and spoiler for improved cooling of the engine and intercoolers, as well as a black egg-crate grille with matt silver edging, which also frames the bi-Xenon headlights. There is a rear spoiler but it is discreet, designed to reduce rear lift by 20 per cent - no more, no less.

The look - and chassis behaviour for that matter - is capped off by the choice of 17 or 18-inch alloy wheels mated to either Pirelli P-Zero Rosso 235/45 or 235/40 rubber.

Inside there are clear-blue instruments framed in silver, a three-spoke leather steering wheel and sports seats with the option of an untreated aniline leather which in time, Volvo says, takes on a "completely individual patina".