This is a bit of an odd one. I can see why Volvo would want to investigate the sports coupé/hatch market, but it's putting itself up against formidable opposition from Audi (with the A3) and BMW (with the 1-Series).Whatever the merits of those cars - and I must admit I haven't yet driven a 1-Series that impresses me - there is no shortage of younger drivers who aspire to the brands in question. I find it hard to believe that quite so many Bright Young Things are counting the days until they can afford to buy a Volvo, and if I'm right about that it surely follows that the C30 would have to be very different from anything else the company produces in order to entice the smart set into the showrooms.It certainly looks different. There are familiar Volvo touches, most of them at the front end, but the basic profile and the treatment at the rear bear little resemblance to anything else in the current range (though the tail harks back to the old 1800 and the later 480).Volvo likes to point out that the C30 was based on a styling exercise that was not originally intended to become a production car, and I can quite believe it. To me, it seems too designer-led, as if nobody had stepped in to say, "Okay, guys, it looks very pretty, but could you tone things down so that we can make it practical?"Hence, for example, the drastic lack of room in the rear, and the tunnel effect down the centre of the car which means you can stand at the back and, if there's no parcel shelf fitted, look through the rear window, past the rear seats, past the front seats and on to the centre console, which you may spend some moments admiring until the owner comes back with the shopping and wants to know why the hell you're starting through their car. Apart from the bit about the owner, that's the official Volvo line, and it sounds like someone has been spending too long drinking the wrong sort of coffee.Even so, the styling may be enough to attract people to the car. It could hardly be described as nondescript, and if we're going to make direct comparisons I'd say it's more distinctive than the A3 and less alarming than the 1-Series.But both the Audi and the BMW feel as sporty to drive as they look (or are intended to do so, even if the results aren't always successful). David Morgan has already suggested in his launch review that the high performers in the range, the D5 turbo diesel and range-topping T5, fall short of true hot-hatch worthiness, and that applies just as much to the 2.0D tested here.With its 138bhp two-litre diesel engine, this might not have been expected to be a tarmac terrorist, but it could still have been sharper than it is. Instead, it feels for some of the time very much like a larger Volvo saloon, with excellent ride quality for a relatively small car.That's the good news. Unfortunately, for the rest of the time it feels like a small car with a heavy engine in the nose. When it's being pushed hard, or when it encounters difficult road surfaces, the weight of the engine starts to require more attention than the suspension gives it, and the ride quality falls apart. It's a curious mix: over gentle undulations the C30 feels like an expensive luxury car; on harsher bumps it feels like a cheap hatch.Whenever Volvo announces a new model it attracts a lot of interest, and the C30 has been no different - there were 24,000 enquiries from potential UK customers when the original concept car was first shown. Whether or not this translates into sales success depends more than anything else on whether people are attracted by the style. Engine 1997cc, 4 cylinders Power 134bhp Fuel/CO2 49.6mpg / 151g/km Acceleration 0-60mph: 8.8 seconds Top speed 130mph Price £19,295 Details correct at publication date
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