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From Swedespeed.com Miscellaneous Features 2006 was a banner year for Volvo at the SEMA Show. The aftermarket industry event in Las Vegas has always been an important show for the Swedish auto maker, but the impending launch of the C30 made last year’s event an even more aggressively planned-for display. Key to that display was the plan to supply three preproduction C30s to aftermarket tuners even before the car had been introduced at the Paris Auto Show or even photos shown on the web. The whole process started with secrecy and continued at a break-neck pace before the three C30’s November debut. With the 2007 SEMA Show just one week away, Swedespeed will be offering a three-part look back at these three C30s.
Swedespeed: That's the production K&N piece you have now? Hart: Yep-We have them in stock now. Swedespeed: What modification on this car is something that your customers are going to be able to buy? Hart: The K&N intake, the ECU upgrade, aquamist, the strut brace, the KW coilovers, our rear bar upgrade, the brake system, the wheels, and the downpipe. We haven’t done an exhaust yet. The one on here is for show only.
Swedespeed: No gull wings huh? Hart: No way! Swedespeed: Who ended up doing them? Hart: A local fabrication shop. That was the nightmare of the project. It is a story within itself. I don't know if you heard what happened, but they quoted 7 to 10 days to do it and it took them 5 weeks. We had to take the car from them. That put us so far behind schedule. The guy that did the body and paint kind of saved our project. A 55 year old guy did most of it. We used a 2005 Subaru WRX STi JDM spoiler to shape the nose. He built the rear diffuser, widened the fender arches an inch, widened the rockers an inch and he did it all in 5 days by himself in his home garage. And, he fixed the doors so they would at least function and look decent.
Swedespeed: Oh when you got them back from the fab shop it wasn't functional? Hart: No, there was no latching or strikers or anything. That paint shop guy performed a miracle for us. The interior, the mobile audio system, that was all done with Alpine and we worked with Benchmark Automotive out of Seattle . That came out well. They did a fantastic job. Swedespeed: Will any of the mobil electronics be marketed by you guys? Hart: I don't think so because it is a completely isolated system. It is not interfaced with the stock system at all. You would have to be a pretty hardcore audio enthusiast to go to that extreme. It is the first 8" touch screen that has navigation, DVD, and iPod control all in 1 unit. It’s pretty cool.
Swedespeed: The arches were widened by an inch you said? Hart: Yes. We removed all the body seams. It is subtle so that you might not notice that we did it. We didn't go too crazy. Swedespeed: How long before the show did you get done? Before the due date? Hart: Here is the story. The truck was to show up on the 21st of October. It was a Thursday at noon. It was the latest date that Volvo would allow us to have the car. So at 10:30 in the morning on that date the truck had called and said, "hey I'm already in town, hanging out, waiting for you guys." We said okay. We were making final adjustments on that door trying to get it to where it would be the same height and along the rain gutter all the welds broke. It was the worst possible thing that could have happened. So I called Volvo and said we just had a little catastrophe here, we are going to need another 3-4 days. We are going to have to miss the photo shoot but we will get it to SEMA. VOLVO said, "it has to be at the photo shoot. You've got 8 hours". It was a blessing that it broke at that seam. We were able to repair it structurally and hide the paint damage with some creative use of body trim.
Swedespeed: So you didn't have to repaint it? Hart: No. We touched it up a little. That panel in there is a little wavy still. Swedespeed: Didn't damage the door when it fell? Hart: No. We had it down to this level then, "BAM". I still had it in my hand. A couple of my co-workers were on the other side of the car and they saw what happened. I couldn't see what happened but I could see their faces turn white. Those doors, it is a miracle that it is here at all based on the problems that we had.
Swedespeed: Well congratulations. It is here and the car looks great. Hart: It all came down to the wire. Lucky and I worked 36 hours straight on it the last 2 days of the project to get it on the truck. If you would have seen it the Monday of the week that they picked it up, you would say there is no way. In fact, 3 days before the car was to be picked up, we hadn’t even started on the engine compartment because we were still waiting on the supercharger to arrive. Nothing could be installed as it all hinged on the position of the supercharger. Once we had the supercharger in our hands a friend of mine made that intake manifold and all the components that bolt to the supercharger. I gave him all the parts on a Saturday and on Sunday night they were done. Luckily it all bolted on and everything worked. We had a lot of little blessings on this one. I have to take responsibility for selecting the shop that did the Gull wing doors and just about killed the project for us. We had a similar experience with them on the XC70 All Terrain we built last year, but decided to give them another chance and we got bit hard (again-). Swedespeed: Well you never know with something that has never been done before. Hart: True, True.
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