Volvo C70 2.4 T5 Coupe > Reviews (5)

I must admit that when a good friend of mine swapped his Mercedes 230 Kompressor for a Volvo C70 T5 I thought he'd made a bad judgement, this then went out of the window as soon as we got out on the road. The performance of the C70 T5 is frankly... suprisingly quick.

The T5 (turbo) in the C70 automatic will outsprint most other (if not all) cars in its class, the 0-60 is in the low 6's, but remember this car is a sophisticated cruiser for business men rather than a boy racer from The Fast and the Furious.

When pushed to the limit the car absolutely flies, I hadn't heard much about the T5 before this but for those who haven't I really recommend taking a look at them. For some reason though you can now only get a convertible C70 T5 as new in this country - if you want the hardtop you will have to import it. Volvo have put the T5 into the new S40 as well and judging buy the bargain prices you can get older S40's for this is potentially going to be a bargain car in 3-4 years time.

Aesthetically the Volvo doesn't look as good as a Mercedes 230 (my own personal view is that the headlight wipers look tacky and cheap and from the front make a real mess of the car). We parked the Volvo next to a Mercedes 230 and for me there's no contest, as both cars were in silver you can pick out all the contours and shapes but still I'd put the Merc slightly ahead.

On the interior as well I would say the Mercedes takes the biscuit, but again there's not much between the two. My feeling is that a 2000 Volvo C70 T5 automatic with average miles is good value for around £14, 000 and a lot of fun. The boot space is also ample, forget one set of golf clubs you could quite easily pack a spare as well.

So overall the looks of the Volvo are good but not spectacular but the performance far outways this. As for cons - Volvo's are never cheap to service especially if taken to a main dealer so buyer beware and the front tyres tend to wear down quite quickly.