All Cars, All the Time

Volvo Mulls How To Sell Its Goods

The C30 will soon be darkening the doorways of Volvo dealers in the States and HQ is in a bit of a pickle on how to sell it. It's current entry models S40/V50 haven't flown off the shelves here in the USA and those models have four doors! Now Volvo has to sell the C30 and it's a three door hatchback. BMW and Mercedes have both tried selling such models here and the key word to remember here is "tried." Now granted the C30 does have appealing styling. You can also point out that Mini has made a real go of it. But it's hard to see how Volvo can latch on the hipness of Mini. People think of Volvo's as being safe, family cars. Yes, Volvo does have the hotted up V70 R and S60 R but to quote Prince "Those kind of cars don't pass you every day." Given all that, Automotive News is reporting that Volvo is mulling over three different strategies for the C30:

• Pitching the car as an entry-luxury urban commuter with an inline four-cylinder engine and a sticker price of around $23,000.
• Equipping the C30 with a turbocharged five-cylinder engine for around $25,000.
• Loading the C30 with everything including all-wheel drive and pricing it at around $30,000.

Given the expected small volume for the car, Volvo US can only have it one way, so they had better guess right. My bet is on the middle, turbo, option. Will it sell? I would like to say yes, but $25K affords you a lot options--I don't know that a three door hatch would be at the top of my list. Is it at the top of yours?