I6 Turbo 3.0l Cd Awd Turbocharged Power Steering 4-wheel Disc Brakes Fog Lamps on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Volvo EX90 exterior teased further, goes heavy on glass and aero

How about six more teasers of the battery-electric, seven-seat Volvo EX90 SUV? We've heard about the new interior materials, seen renderings of the minimalist instrument panel and read about a massive commitment to safety inside and outside the SUV. Now we have scraps about what it took to put everything together within the aesthetic Volvo sought and a mission statement of "confident, sophisticated, and seamless." The rounder grille-less front fascia flows over the hood to a greenhouse heavy on flush glass. A large, tinted panoramic glass roof lets in just enough light without superheating the cabin and without robbing headroom. The side glazing is flush with the pillars and nearly flush with the sides of the car to improve aerodynamic efficiency. Flush door handles emerge as the keyholder approaches. Volvo says the EX90 posts a drag coefficient of 0.29, a figure that compares to 0.26 for the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV and 0.24 for the Tesla Model X that, admittedly, offers tiny optional third-row seats. Speaking with Motor Trend, lead Volvo exterior designer T. Jon Mayer said the other side of letting lots of light in the cabin is creating an inviting atmosphere when there's lots of dark in the cabin. "We’ve put a lot of effort into the illumination inside the EX90, trying to create a warm interior and a somewhat colder expression for the exterior," he said, making an analogy with the Swedish climate and Swedish people.  The Lidar sensor plays its part in a new level of safety and in aerodynamics. Placed at the leading edge of the roof, the Luminar sensor sits under a teardrop-shaped glass enclosure about 18 inches wide, under two inches tall. The laser system comes standard, helping provide 360-degree awareness so that the EX90 can always pay attention and take appropriate safe actions at those times when the driver isn't paying attention. Volvo says that tying exterior sensor safety logic to in-cabin cameras that can tell if a driver is focused on the task "can reduce the risk of death or serious injury by up to 20%." We've just seven days to go until Volvo mandarins gather in Stockholm to reveal the car to launch the automaker's next phase. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Volvo S60 Polestar entering limited production in Australia [w/video]

The Volvo S60 Polestar Concept may be entering limited production in Australia and, depending how the Aussies take to this Swedish super sports sedan, could then be made available worldwide. The news comes from Austrlia's GoAuto, which claims to have received early info from its sources inside Volvo and its tuning/motorsport arm, Polestar.
Polestar released a short teaser video this week (watch it below) of what appears to be the S60 Polestar Concept clipping the snowy apex of an ice track's turn. The only information given with the teaser were the words "Limited Edition. Soon in Australia." Unveiled last June, the S60 Polestar concept has since made the rounds at auto shows, visited Jay Leno's Garage, played on the track with its future competition, and even secured a home for itself with a buyer who reportedly is paying Volvo some $300,000 to own it.
The S60 Polestar Concept is about the meanest machine one can imagine making out of Volvo's sports sedan. Packing 508 horsepower and 424 pound-feet of torque from its heavily modified T6 engine, then routing those revolutions through a six-speed manual transmission to all four wheels, the S60 Polestar is said to cover the sprint to 62 miles per hour in 3.9 seconds. A lower and wider body, brakes by Brembo, suspension bits by Ohlins and a diet to delete some weight make this car a serious issue for M3 and C63 AMG owners everywhere. GoAuto's sources say the production version's performance will be dialed back a bit from the concept's, but we'll have to wait until Volvo and Polestar make this sedan's production official to find out by how much.

What's the deal with comedians and their cars?

'Round about the time in his life when it should happen for all of us, Jerry Seinfeld's ship came in with a force that almost split the dock. He'd been doing pretty well with his observational style ("There's a cereal now that's just cookies. Have you seen this? Cookies for breakfast. It's called Cookie Crisp. Cookies for breakfast! They oughta just call it 'To Hell With Everything!'"). But he showed no signs of setting the world on fire until he got cast in a show that was either about – depending on the level of comedy geek you ask – the average New Yorker, the very worst people in the world, or nothing. Suddenly Jerry Seinfeld was pretty much the center of the comedy universe. And while his comedy was at once both brilliantly innovative and rooted in the mundane, his next move was a predictable grab at something exotic – he went out and bought his dream car. A rather nice 911, actually. As almost everyone knows, it didn't stop there, and the man put together one of the most enviable collections of iconic Porsches we're likely to see. So what's the connection, if there is one, between cars and comedy? As far as Jerry Seinfeld (the man) is concerned, he's probably not the same guy as the Jerry on Seinfeld (the show) although it's hard to say for sure; his public persona is almost unnervingly well managed. But cars and comedy were the constants in his life then, and, well, just look at what the guy does now; Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is a cultural constant, and we're certainly seeing Seinfeld the man in that one, and cars are obviously still central to his life. And it's been that way with a lot of very, very good comedy guys. Cars seem to round out their lives, to become the yin to their comedy yang. Ernie Kovacs might not have invented visual gags or surreal humor, but he got them both to kill on television in the 1950s, so he's a comedy hero. He died behind the wheel of his beloved Corvair wagon, so he's absolutely some kind of car-guy hero as well. Bill Cosby, the hottest name in comedy for a good long while, had Ferraris, one of two fire-breathing supercharged big-block Cobras (pictured below), and a BMW 2002tii – none of which either contributed to or in any way make up for the profoundly sociopathic creature he turned out to be, but it's still a data point. The Smothers Brothers, who defied the networks and the norms by getting blatantly political before that sort of thing was cool, went sports car racing.