We have the first photos of Volvo’s sporty take on the new V40 – the Volvo V40 R Design – ahead of a debut at the Paris Motor Show.

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Update: Volvo has now caught up with this story, so we’ve added a few more photos and a video. The V40 R-Design will be available as an option across all the V40’s range of engines but the Sport suspension still remains an option, not standard. Other than that, the report is right.

We had the official reveal of the new Volvo V40 at Geneva in the Spring, but one thing that was missing from the lineup of ES, SE and SE Lux trims was a V40 with more sporty pretensions.

But it looks like that omission is about to be rectified with the first photos of the new Volvo V40 R-Design arriving ahead of a reveal at Paris later this month.

Volvo don’t go in for a Halford’s glitterball makeover for their cars – quite right to – so what the R-Design option adds to the V40 is subtle body modifications to make the already good looking V40 look a bit more like it means business.

The suspension is likely to be lowered and tweaked with the V40s sport suspension option as standard and a nice set of bigger alloys to add to the glitz.

We’ve asked Volvo for more details and we’ll update as soon as we have more detail.

Volvo V40 R-Design Photos >>