A fitting way to roll up to the Concours, no?
Nascent performance marque Polestar is set to grace the Monterey car week and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and it won’t be coming empty handed. The late-August event is set to receive the brands’ debut model, the Polestar 1 grand tourer, marking the cars’ debut in the region.
“It’s great to bring Polestar to America. North America is a major market for our new brand and we have received great feedback and high interest in the Polestar 1 from our American customers. So far, nearly 200 customers have placed deposits in the United States alone, the largest number of any country. Now it’s their turn to see the car in person, and in a beautiful environment at that.” — Thomas Ingenlath, Chief Executive, Polestar
The Polestar 1 is the debut model for the marque, and symbolised the split between the performance brand and its former minders at Volvo. While the brands remain intertwined thanks to extensive parts- and expertise-sharing, Polestar’s establishment as its own brand allowed it to explore the future of high-performance mobility with greater ability & zeal, as it would no longer have to concern itself with the Volvo tenets of comfort and serenity (too much).
A grand tourer in concept, the Polestar 1 packs a heavily-reworked version of Volvo’s T8 Twin Engine plug-in hybrid powertrain (available in more vanilla cars like the XC90 SUV and S90 saloon), though in this application it makes a jaw-dropping 441kW and 1,000Nm, allowing the 1 to complete the century sprint in just 4-seconds despite its 2-tonne weight. The 34kWh battery and two electric motors at the rear is responsible for the weight, but its been offset (somewhat) by the carbon-fibre rich structure that was engineered in conjunction with fellow Swedish brand Koenigsegg.
While some £135k (or just under $240k) can secure a Polestar 1 for you outright, the brand reckons that a bulk of its orders will come under Polestar’s subscription-ownership system, which is identical to Care by Volvo in execution. With the aforementioned package, it’ll allow Polestar customers to “focus on the joy of driving,” while also unlocking various concierge services that will deliver greater convenience for owners.
For more information on Polestar, check out our Volvo showroom.
