Volvo C70 convertible a thrill, even as it baffles

Sacramento, California – The 2012 Volvo C70 T5 convertible showed up in all-black form, looking every inch like a mini-Batmobile.

Which is appropriate, because many of the high-tech features inside the car were a mystery to me, and alas, the Caped Crusader never showed up to give me instructions.  So, I spent a week fumbling with the steering wheel-mounted controls and messing up the navigation system map to the point where I was seemingly driving along an uncharted road in the wilds of Montana.

Simply put, the car’s technology was more powerful than I.  Does this make the C70 a bad car?

On the contrary, I had a bout of techno-idiot syndrome.  The car is actually quite nice.

Especially at speed.  The five-cylinder 2.5-liter turbo power plant has an advertised 227 horsepower, but the performance characteristics felt way beyond that number.  No problem getting aggressive in dicey freeway traffic with this C70.  It moved like a greyhound among turtles.

The weather was warm enough to put the three-piece steel roof through its paces, and watching that roof retreat and reappear is worth the price of admission.  Makes you feel special, and with a starting price of $40,450 on the tester (with extras pushing the price to $51,570), yeah, you have the right to feel special.

The four-seat arrangement is entirely comfortable for four adults, even though the two in the back need to work a little bit to get settled in back there.

Luxury and technology features abound inside the sleek droptop.  Some things, however, left me perplexed.

Most perplexing was the presence of metal on the bottom arc at the top of the steering wheel and on top of the center-mounted floor shifter.  Take it from me: You do not want to be touching those metal parts when the Volvo has been sitting in the hot sun for an hour or more.

The safety technology in this Volvo apparently was derived from an alien culture far more advanced than ours.  The most mind-blowing feature was this: The C70 has metal hoops that shoot up behind the rear seat passengers to protect all in the event of a rollover.  They’re activated by a gyro-sensor, and since the C70 has a glass rear window, the hoops are fitted with small metal spikes … the better to blast up through the window glass if the roof is up during a rollover.

I opted not to test this feature.

Gas mileage is not so bad for a turbo at 18 miles per gallon in the city and 28 mpg on the highway.

I think Volvo has given the crowd what it wants from this model: a sexy, sporty convertible stuffed with enough luxury and safety perks to make it feel much pricier than it really is.  How Swede it is!