The controversial secret lap record of Volvo at the Nürburgring

The Volvo S60 Polestar set the best time at the Nürburgring among four-door saloons, a fact that was revealed a year later.

If you had to guess which is the fastest four-door saloon on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which model would you choose? Whatever your candidate, you would hardly have guessed it, mainly because it has been kept secret for a whole year!

Volvo has just announced that the S60 Polestar set the best time among four-door saloons around the “Green Hell” a year ago, but is this time the best that a model of this kind has ever achieved?

The record was beaten with a time of 7 minutes and 51.11 seconds, a mark that has since been surpassed by four-door performance saloons such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (7 minutes 39 seconds). In any case, clear proof that the time recorded by the Volvo S60 Polestar is quite remarkable is that one of the most fearsome sports cars on the market, the BMW M4 (7:52.00), is slightly slower than the Swedish model on the German circuit. The Swedish saloon’s time is truly surprising, bearing in mind that the S60 Polestar has a four-cylinder petrol engine producing 362 CV, well below the 500 CV offered by the V6 engine of the Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde and also below the 420 CV of the BMW M4.

Volvo has stated that the time was achieved during a test day, and that its main objective was not to set a record; something we find hard to believe given the good mark posted by its performance saloon.

The conditions under which the record was set are still to be revealed. Did the Swedish model use a roll cage to increase its torsional rigidity? Which tyres did it use for the lap? Was it a full lap of the circuit or a shortened version? We will have to wait to learn these details; in the meantime we can enjoy the video of the record achieved by the Swedish performance car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qip8y2LtzMc