Volvo clearly didn’t purchase its Polestar tuning outfit for nothing – the company wants to expand high-performance offerings to include the recently revealed S90 sedan.
The Swedish marque’s good looking flagship is built on the modular SPA platform to be shared with the next-generation S60 and V60, models already slated for the Polestar treatment.
Speaking with UK car magazine Autocar this week, Volvo boss Hakan Samuelsson confirmed the company is interested in a Polestar model larger than S60.
“You could have a high-performance variant [of the S90] without leaving the brand,” he told Autocar. “You could still have a nice car with smart design and functionality, but what’s wrong with a little performance?

Volvo last year purchased 100 per cent of Polestar, formerly a Swedish tuning partner. Six cylinders or more are out of the picture as Volvo’s engine family is now four-pot only, but a hybrid powertrain will likely be a goer according to Volvo R&D chief Peter Mertens.
“Polestar will still be sophisticated performance,” Mertens told Autocar. “It’s not just a case of doing a ‘boy racer’ by dropping a big engine in there. Hybrid power is the direction that Polestar will go in. In a way, Tesla has legitimised electric performance, although Polestar will be more sophisticated again.”

There will be a wagon version, too, with the forthcoming V90– big-backed twin to the S90 – tagged by Volvo UK managing director Nick Connor as potentially even more appropriate for the Polestar treatment, at least for the British market.
“I’d say a wagon is more likely for us [UK market] than a Polestar version of the S90, because we have the heritage there from our days with the 850 in the British Touring Car Championship,” he explained to Autocar.