Volvo S60 Polestar Nurburgring Record Kept Secret For A Year

Cyan Racing's time with a road-legal Volvo S60 Polestar has since been beaten.

Volvo S60 Polestar

Adrian Padeanu

By: Adrian Padeanu

May 25, 2017 at 6:56am ET

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Nürburgring lap records continue to be all the rage among car manufacturers from all over the world and it comes to our surprise Volvo also joined the Green Hell time attack game back in 2016 without telling us — until now. The story goes like this:

Cyan Racing remained at the demanding Nordschleife last year after the FIA World Touring Car Championship round to perform what they describe as being a “secret test.” The main purpose of the evaluation was to gain knowledge and discover ways to improve the road-going S60 Polestar by squeezing more performance from the powered-up sedan putting to good use the team’s motorsport expertise.

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At one point during the testing phase, Cyan Racing decided to have a go at taking down the Nürburgring record for the fastest production car with four doors. 7 minutes, 51 seconds, and 73 corners later, the Volvo S60 Polestar established a new record. The Swedes ultimately decided to keep things low key and not make a big deal about what at that time was a record-breaking attempt.

As of September 2016, the Alfa Romeo Giulia in the top-spec Quadrifoglio became the fastest four-door, road-legal production car around the ‘Ring with an impressive lap of 7 minutes and 32 seconds, thus besting the S60’s time by a whopping 19 seconds. It should be pointed out we’re not taking into account the Porsche Panamera Turbo (7:38) and the Honda Civic Type R (7:43) since they’re both technically five-door cars.

Volvo S60 Polestar

Even though the Volvo S60 Polestar has been dethroned by the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, the result posted by the Polestar-tweaked sedan is still pretty impressive when you have a look at the technical specifications of the two. Updated in 2016, the S60 only has a 367-hp four-cylinder gasoline engine, albeit both supercharged and turbocharged. As for the Alfa, it’s propelled by a meaty biturbo 2.9-liter V6 engine using Ferrari knowhow to develop a monstrous 505 hp, so it’s not exactly what you would call a fair fight between the two.

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Let’s keep in mind the S60 has been around since 2010 whereas the Giulia was launched only last year. Volvo will revamp its sedan in the years to come and surely Polestar will get its hand on it for a faster version that will be able to take on the four-leaf clover.

Source: Volvo