2011Volvo C30 is pricey hatchback with distinctive styling

Volvo’s smallest U.S. car still rare on roads

The Volvo C30 three-door, small hatchback sure isn’t a “me-too” car. Three years after it came to the United States as Volvo’s smallest vehicle here, the not-quite-14-foot-long C30 with distinctive, large rear liftgate glass and four seats has sold in such low volumes that it’s still a rarity on most roads.

And now that Volvo of Sweden has been sold to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. of China and the new owner is assessing Volvo’s products, little is changing near term for the C30, except the price, a slight styling update and stiffer suspension for an uplevel model.

Starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price, including destination charge, for the 2011 C30 increased $500 from 2010. The base model starts at $25,450, with manual transmission and 227-horsepower, turbocharged, five-cylinder engine. With automatic transmission the 2011 C30 starts at $26,700, and the uplevel C30 with sporty R-Design body kit and sport suspension starts at $27,800 with manual transmission.

These base prices are higher than those of many small hatchbacks, which helps explain the C30’s low sales.

For example, Honda sold more than twice as many of its five-door Fit hatchbacks in one month — 6,363 in August — as the 2,991 C30s that Volvo sold so far all this year in the United States. Starting retail price of the 2010 Fit is $15,650. It’s true the Fit has only a 117-horsepower, non-turbocharged, four-cylinder engine.

But even the Volkswagen GTI — a European-bred, turbocharged hatchback — has a lower starting price than the C30. The 2011 VW GTI three-door model has a starting retail price of $24,460 with manual transmission and 200-horsepower, turbocharged, four-cylinder engine. A 2011 VW GTI three-door hatchback with automatic starts at $25,560. Meantime, the 2010 Mini Cooper starts at $19,500 with 118-horsepower, four-cylinder engine and manual transmission and goes up to near $30,000 with turbo four cylinder.

Volvo previously was owned by Ford Motor Co., and the sale to the Chinese automaker was just finalized in August.

U.S. versions of the C30 still come from a factory in Ghent, Belgium, that built the C30 when Volvo was owned by Ford.

And the 2011 C30 is still based on a front-wheel drive platform that Ford engineered jointly with Mazda and Volvo engineers. Ford previously held a sizable stake in Mazda, too.

The test car, an uplevel C30 R-Design, showed off the new, more aggressive front styling for 2011. With trapezoidal headlamps and the characteristic Volvo cross-grille badge slash, the C30 is easy to pick out in a parking lot and doesn’t look like Japanese-styled hatchbacks.

The rear end is left alone, retaining the big, oddly shaped glass in the liftgate that can give everyone walking by a good view of what is stored in the rear cargo area.

Inside, the C30 has a minimalistic appearance on the dashboard, where gauges and controls aren’t overdone with colors and gadgetry. In fact, the lack of color display for the radio and ventilation seemed old school compared with today’s more brightly appointed car interiors.

Note the C30 tester did not include a factory-installed navigation system. But it still topped $33,000.

The R-Design model is the sportiest version of C30. Its body kit makes the car seem lower to the pavement than a regular C30. But the pieces at the front weren’t low enough to scrape the pavement when I entered driveways, thank goodness.

Under the body, there’s an R-Design sport suspension that for 2011 was made even stiffer with new springs, dampers and roll stabilizers all working to control the body and make for a taut ride.

Combined with 18-inch performance tires, the test car rode harshly and loudly over many road bumps. I had to crank the radio volume up when the car was on all but the newest of asphalt-covered roads, and the constant vibrations and jolts, along with road noise, became tiring.

The C30 R-Design did handle mountain twisties with confidence and agility, and I enjoyed the quicker steering response that comes with the R-Design package. But I was surprised at the 38.1-foot turning circle for such a small car and for a Volvo. The Volvo S40 sedan has a turning circle of just 34.9 feet.

The C30’s 227-horsepower, 2.5-liter, turbocharged, double overhead cam five-cylinder engine is in both the base model and the R-Design. It has good get up and go starting at 1,500 rpm when torque peaks at 236 foot-pounds and continues to 5,000 rpm, so it’s performs well at startup as well as during highway passing maneuvers.

Front bucket seats had good support. But width-wise, the C30 can feel cramped, even in the front seats, if passengers are hefty in size. Passengers in the rear have to contend with their heads getting a lot of hot sun from the large rear glass that’s in the liftgate. They also have to make do with 34.2 inches of legroom.

Cargo space aft of the rear seats is just 12.9 cubic feet, and parts of the area back there is shallow. I worried that my gear was in easy view back there and also exposed to a lot of hot sun. With the rear seatbacks pushed down, the cargo room expands to 20.2 cubic feet.

The C30 is a recommended vehicle by Consumer Reports, which puts its reliability at average.

Unfortunately, the C30 has been the subject of federal government safety recalls for every model year since its introduction.

The most recent: The 2010 and 2011 C30s were part of a 536-car safety recall in June prompted by a gearshift lever stud assembly that may not have been properly tightened during production, leading to a potential inability to shift the car.