A Cool Volvo? Thanks Galpin for your Custom C30

If you were at the L.A. Autoshow - you were probably dissappointed. A lot of the same old without many debuts. Generally, a lot of plastic, already-available cars for close to $30K. It left us wanting a restored Chevy Malibu and one of those eight dollar Margaritas they were peddling in the convention center.

But, if you'd stopped by the Galpin booth next to the Garage Envy Ford GT display, you saw something you have never seen before. A customised / hot-rodded Volvo. And not just any safety-obsessed Ikea couch on wheels - but the C30.

Shocking the world with a radical use of flat paint (like the Lexus, flat black, FiveAxis concept but not). This thing was purple, had a Galpiny white racing stripe and massive, color-matched purple wheels with white walls. So, what it looked like was a lead sled from the 50s but on a cutting edge Volvo hatchback. The car appears in Galpin's 2008 calendar but it's still in the Basic Transportation official car - so we're not sure which month. A hatchback that looks fast but not 'import scene fast'? Awesome! What do you think about the fast and furious C30? Comment at will!

Volvo gets an extra 4 1/4 mpg from the C30 with simple tweaks - why are they alone?

Fuel cells, hybrid drives and thousands of batteries. There's lots at the Frankfurt show to show off car companies as whale kissing, tree hugging, environmental freaks. Lots and lots of technology we might see in like ten years to help save the planet and help you score with hippie chicks.

For the moment, Volvo has decided to keep it real and, as Autoblog points out, simple as hell with the C30 Efficiency - a 1.6L Diesel Volvo that, by the way, already gets better gas mileage than Google's Prius Fleet (none-plug-in).

Tweaks (listed in another Autoblog post here) to the gears, undercarriage, even oil and tires and wheels and viola - 9 g/km (grams per kilometer you drive in it) less CO2 AND, AND, wait for it, AND 4.25 mpg more! That's savings you can take to the money bank and you can shit on Prius drivers, since - the new mileage I used a calculated, so I assume Basic Transportation - Car and Truck and Electric Vehicle (why not) blog brought it to you first. Click on title to see Autoblog's C30 Efficiency image gallery (not exciting, but efficient).

Yeah, We're Half Way There.

My man, Bob, at Cars Cars Cars says the Volvo C30 won't be out until 2008 or 9. I say, that's crap. Why would you still care in two years? When Mini wanted to make a longer Mini, for no reason at all, they just did it. And yet, shopping the ass-end of a S40 takes 3 years? By then, Focuses will fly, Scions will turn into robots and Minis will come with about twelve doors, including four as the rear hatch.

All I'm saying is, if you have a cool car, just make it already. This is the only Volvo that doesn't look lame, almost ever (I do like the 544 from the 60s). And, come to think of it, that's a cool Volvo hatchback that's already out. With less than 100 horsepower but tons of coolness, you won't beat the 544 - and, for around 5 grand, you're probably better off. The C30 looks good in the pictures, but in real life it's as pretentious and vaguely effeminate as any Volvo.