The Polestar 1 is a stunning car. Just a shame it's not a Volvo S90 Coupe.

The Polestar 1 (pictured) is a stunning car. Just a shame it’s not a Volvo S90 Coupe.

The new Polestar 1 – Polestar’s first standalone car – looks great and promises much, but should Volvo have made it a Volvo S90 Coupe instead?

When the Volvo Concept Coupe arrived back in 2013, we all looked up and said “Wow”.

Not only did the Volvo Coupe look stunning, it showed that Volvo had truly moved on from staid design to a bright new future of cool Scandi appeal. And we looked forward to Volvo putting it in to production once they’d renewed their core range.

But since the Concept Coupe arrived, Volvo has bought up Polestar and decided it will build standalone cars, and that a Polestar take on the Concept Coupe was the way to go.

But however appealing the Polestar 1 is, with its stunning looks, 600PS hybrid powertrain and clever suspension, there are big downsides.

For UK buyers the lack of RHD versions is very disappointing, you won’t be able to buy one (you can only ‘hire’ it) and there will be just 500 made a year.

But if instead Volvo had gone ahead as they seemed to have originally planned, we could have got an S90 Coupe which you could buy, which would come in RHD and which could have been made available with different power options.

We aren’t suggesting Volvo should have delivered an S90 Coupe D4, but they could have delivered a T6, T8 and maybe a Polestar fettled ‘T9’ with additional power on offer, even if it didn’t stretch to the 600 horses under the Polestar 1.

As a Flagship car for Volvo, the S90 Coupe wouldn’t have been a huge seller, but it would have signalled the development of the bloodline from the P1800, and made Volvo look cool and forward thinking. And every premium car maker needs a low volume ‘Flagship’ model.

Oh, what could have been.