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By Royal FordBoston.com
December 11, 2004
As though the two had to be mutually exclusive. Ah, but they were, in certain quarters. After all, Volvo had long been the safe, solid box preferred by tweed-jacketed men with beards, leather elbow pads, and pipes, and by soccer moms seeking safe rides for the kids. Well, the news here today is they can drive their Volvos and have their dandy rides, too. And so, in increasing safety, can their young, tuner-oriented offspring who seek tight driving, all-wheel-drive, and a car you can toss about just for fun. The Volvo S40 T5 AWD is a $27,000-$35,000 car with a visceral feel, ample power, and enough interior coolness to sate most tuner thirsts. Start with its in-line, turbo-charged, all-aluminum engine offering 218 horsepower (and the performance exceeds the billing). Add 236 lb.-ft. of torque (the real muscle) and hook it up to an all-wheel-drive system and you are ready to shuck that tweed jacket, quit smoking that pipe, and join a new generation. But to regress. The S40 is the second generation of a car that started, unfortunately, with too much Mitsubishi under the hood. That's been fixed. Now it is all Volvo, with some European Ford Focus and Mazda 3 tossed in, a far superior car. Its overhangs are shorter, the fenders have steroidal bulges, and it is a bigger car, though it does not appear so. Its wheelbase is more than three inches longer, both width and height are up around 2 inches, and front and rear tracks are increased more than two inches. And that all adds up to - with a stiffer body and stiffer suspension - a stiff ride, which may make the folks at Consumer Reports complain, but which satisfies those who want body feedback, suspension feedback, steering feedback. First, this car looks great. ''They might want smaller cars, but they don't want lesser cars," Gustavsson told the journalists gathered in the Los Padres National Forest in California nearly a year ago. So Volvo built this small car - great room up front, not much head- or legroom in the rear - for young enthusiasts and for those with young families who want Volvos but don't yet need heady headroom or leggy legroom in the rear. It has a V-hood, upright nose, those bulging fenders, a sharply defined hip line, and chopped rear deck. Were it not Swedish, you'd think hot Asian. The S40 (its stable mate is the newly crowned S50 wagon) offers five-cylinder, transverse-mounted engines. The 2.4-liter is a 168-horsepower unit, while the test model came with a 2.5-liter, turbocharged engine. On the road, it was quick, tight, and powerful, very stiff in its ride. Again, what's wrong with that? Adding AWD makes it a stable, practical, New England car year-round. Inside, the S40 is dominated by a subtle slab of technology, a center console stack that more closely resembles a TV remote unit. Thin, it descends, with space behind, from the dash to center console. It's only about a half-inch thick yet houses controls for audio, telephone, and climate. And beyond this gimmickry, Volvo serves up its standard slab of safety features: front, side, and curtain air bags, collapsible pedals, whip-lash (neck) protection, and crumple zones that in crashes direct not only imploding steel and car parts away from occupants, but also direct them into areas that have retreated in order to accept them. Safe, quick, and leather-elbow-pad free.
Find a USED 2005 S40 for SaleFind used car inventory in your area.
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