Volvo of Santa Monica

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Walk Around

The styling of the C70 revolves around the roof, developed in Italy by Pininfarina. Its roofline is that of a coupe, and it is the most handsome of coupes, with a solid upward sweeping A-pillar and delicately thin and downward sweeping C-pillar. Stand close enough, and you can spot the two seams that enable the roof to stack into thirds and drop into the trunk, but otherwise there's not a hint of compromise in the graceful roofline.

The roof lands on the rear deck at a point higher than it takes off from the hood, because of the rear wedge and elevated rear sills for safety. A soft ridge at the beltline carries all the way from headlight to taillight, accentuating the wedge, which is conspicuous but not bulky; the C70 was not given a fat butt in order to fit the roof under its skirt.

The trunk (its lid is aluminum) contains 12.8 cubic feet of cargo space with the roof up, and 6 cubic feet when it's retracted: enough room for two sets of golf clubs, says Volvo.

When viewed from the front three-quarter angle, it's clear how short and smooth the hood and nose are, and how aerodynamic the package truly is. When you pay attention to the lines, the brilliant job by John Kinsey hits home. Five full inches have been removed from the nose of the previous generation C70, and the edges have been softened, resulting in a two-inch narrowing of the front shoulders, despite an increased overall width.

Unlike Audi, which seems to be following the Dodge Ram in-your-face school of design, the grille of the C70 is smaller and quieter. The headlamps gently lean inward toward the grille, as the foglamps under the headlamps surround the opening in the smooth fascia/bumper. The hoodline tapers elegantly down to the bottom of the fascia, inches above the road. The effect of the lower three openings is like a reflection of the headlamps and grille, in a pond. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the shape of the C70 was dictated more by aerodynamics than styling.

It's rare for a designer of a car to also do the wheels (a sore point with designers), but Kinsey did these as well, and the symmetry and standard shows. They look like what they are: made for the car. The optional 18-inch "Mirzam" alloy wheels are stunning. We would say they're worth it for the way they cap the gorgeous styling, but the standard 17-inch "Sadira" alloy wheels are beautiful too. They look like premium wheels.

As the roof retracts, it first elevates, and then slides back and stacks itself in its three sections before quietly submerging into the rear deck. Presto: with one button on the console, it's gone in 30 seconds. Up or down, it takes the same time, and the same index finger.

Many C70s were crashed at the high-tech Volvo Cars Safety Centre in Sweden, to determine the optimum deformation structure in both the nose and tail. Volvo even T-boned the driver's door with one of its own XC90 SUVs: Double the data.

The structural safety features of the C70 take thousands of words to describe in detail. From top to bottom, front to rear, side to side, the chassis has been strengthened, tweaked, and made crushable where possible to dissipate energy in a crash. The C70 more than compensates for the loss of rigidity with a fixed roof; it's stiffer and safer than the previous C70 coupe. The reinforced B pillars, normally connected by a roof, are connected on the C70 by one of five transverse frame members. This dissipates crash forces. The door sills are laser welded, and raised behind the B pillars. The doors have diagonal steel beams. The A-pillars use extra high strength steel, and extend all the way down to the frame rails.

The C70 is built on the S40 platform, and uses the same wheelbase but the S60's wider track, for more stable cornering. But it needs that width between the wheels, to carry the extra weight. Because of the strengthening of the chassis, and the retractable hood mechanism, the C70 weighs 3,772 pounds, which is

Interior

2007 Volvo C70

Top up or top down, life is good inside the Volvo C70. The front bucket seats are ergonomically shaped and very comfortable. The Flextech upholstery that comes standard is a stylish synthetic material with a wetsuit-like feel. Its quality is way beyond cloth, and it feels as nice as leather against the skin.

The front seats slide forward with the touch of a button to ease the boarding of passengers into the two rear seats. There are a number of storage compartments in the cabin, some of which are lockable, useful when the car is parked with the roof down. Other compartments can be locked with a separate key, when leaving the car with a parking attendant, for example.

Volvo's flat-panel center stack fits in a world of flat panel computer monitors and television screens. It features a horizontal information screen over a column of buttons for radio and climate controls. Four big knobs dot each corner, all swathed in sleek aluminum trim. A clever storage bin behind the panel offers a place for a purse. The panel is unique to Volvo. Overall, though, storage space is in short supply.

The trunk gets crowded with the top down, also. Golf club bags have to slide under the roof, so there's an electric mechanism called Load-Aid, which lifts the roof sections and window glass eight inches. There's also a hatch between the rear seats that allows long things like skis to be carried in the trunk, extending into the passenger compartment. There's no room for a full-size spare tire, but buyers can choose between a temporary spare or a compressor bottle with sealant touted to plug a quarter-inch hole sufficiently well to last 120 miles at 50 mph.

In the rear seats, the C70 has more legroom than the Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series (1.5 and 1.9 inches more, respectively).

We found the Dynaudio system vivid and all there. With the top down, as the speed of the car climbs, the volume automatically increases. It doesn't forget to back off when you do.

New for 2007 is a standard auxiliary audio input for iPods and other MP3 players, plus MP3 playback capability from the in-dash CD changer. Sirius satellite radio is also available.

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