2011 Volvo S60 unwrapped at Geneva, an Indian version to follow in late 2010

2011 Volvo S60 Car

Volvos make nice cars that are as safe as, well, your living room. But, they don’t just don’t do much really, to make you lust over one like say the Beemers and Audis of the world. It looks like the Volvo CEO finally realizes what you, me and the grandmother next door did long, long ago and and hence he’s making all the right noises at Geneva.

Here’s what he had to say about the brand new 2011 Volvo S60, launched at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, and we like it. Stephen Odell said

The “60″ badge has been reserved for sporty models in the past and the S60 will be “the most fun-to-drive Volvo ever

2011 Volvo S60 Car

Now, that’s quite a statement for a CEO to make, especially with the whole world watching. That means, the Volvo S60 must have that special something, so much so, that a CEO goes ahead to stick his head out to smugly announce the fact. The 2011 Volvo S60 has just been unveiled at Geneva and for a change, it brings in a modicum of performance apart from it’s other staple which of course goes by the name, safety.

First, the brawn beneath the bonnet. The Volvo S60 is set to feature a twin turbo, inline six petrol mill pumping out 300 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque, with max twist available from a lowly 1,500 rpm. The S60 T6 AWD will run to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds and top out at 155 mph. Looks like things will get nice and frisky with all that forced induction.

2011 Volvo S60's T6 Engine

Now, as an Indian reader going through this post, how the hell is all of this supposed to matter to you. Matter it will, as the Volvo S60 is all set to sail Indiaside in late 2010. We Indians, however will have to make do with a couple of, shall we say, less frisky power plants. The Indian Volvo S60, in all probability will get both petrol and diesel engine options with the 2.4 Liter Turbo petrol pushing out 227 horses and a two liter, four pot oil burner. Coming to the typical Volvo trait or USP if you can call safety that, it get’s an almighty bump.

For example, the Volvo S60 will come to an absolute standstill if a pedestrian jumps in front of it at 21 Mph, all by itself. Here in India, be prepared to be rear ended while the pedestrian scurries off hurling abuses at you. Duh! Don’t worry, you can turn the safety thingy off but we’d suggest against it. Apart from the Active Pedestrian Safety feature, the Volvo S60 is loaded to the gills with airbags, EBD, ASP and a whole lot more.

When it comes to safety, you name it, you’ve got it on the Volvo S60.

2011 Volvo S60 Side

As far as the glamor quotient is concerned, the eyes won’t feel stressed. While the Volvo S60 doesn’t look as staid as it’s previous iterations, it doesn’t make you want to pull out the cheque book and rush to a nearest Volvo showroom as well. The front end shows just a hint of the latest Mercedes Benz E Class while the lateral surfaces hint at a tinge of sportiness with a coupe-ish stance.

Though not anything spectacular, the design manages to reiterate the line “As safe as a Volvo”. Volvo India will launch the S60 later this year and going by their S80‘s value-for-money pricing, we’re expecting a price tag that guns straight for the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes Benz C Class, rather than the the bigger 5 Series and the E Class, which incidentally happen to be the Volvo S60′s real rivals. The wait begins…

2011 Volvo S60 Car Rear

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March 2, 2010 | By Jay Prashanth · Tags: 2011 Volvo S60 India, Volvo S60 India Price

Comments

One Response to “2011 Volvo S60 unwrapped at Geneva, an Indian version to follow in late 2010”

Jim Gorde on July 7th, 2010 11:38 am

Volvo will launch the S60 in India with the T6 petrol (there is no 2.5L 227bhp on the cards for the S60, it is an older engine and will be replaced by the 2.0GTDi in 3 states of tune). The D3 is a 163bhp 2.0L 5-cyl unit (de-stroked down from 2.4L) while the trademark 205bhp 2.4L D5 will also be on offer..

These will be followed by T3 and T4 – both 1.6 direct injection turbo petrol 4-cyl engines with 150bhp/240Nm and 180bhp/240Nm. And a more powerful 2.0L direct injection turbo petrol 4-cyl engine with 240bhp/320Nm. A 1.6L 4-cyl diesel with 115bhp/270Nm will be offered as the DRIVe version. These, however, will only come in by 2012.

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