All of the new Volvo S60 and V60 Polestar, which will be sold on four continents around the world from June 2014, will be fitted with 245/35 R 20 MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport ultra-high performance tires as standard.
Also, for winter driving, the MICHELIN Pilot Alpin 4 and X-Ice North 3 tires are recommended fitments.
The Polestar engineered cars are Volvo's fastest production cars ever and with their 350hp six cylinder turbocharged engines are able to accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in just 4.9 seconds.
Speaking about their decision to fit the MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport to the cars, Henrick Fries, Volvo S60 and V60 Polestar Project Manager said: ‘The MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport tires suit the Volvo S60 and V60 very well and are capable of delivering the high levels of performance required for our cars’.
The MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport is Michelin's ultra-high performance road tire that is fitted to some of the world’s fastest supercars. The tire was developed using the knowledge and experience that Michelin has accumulated over many years of racing at the highest levels at events such as the Le Mans 24 hours race – the Company’s tires have carried the winning cars over the finish line for the past 16 years in a row!
‘The MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport perfectly conveys the MICHELIN Total Performance strategy by combining excellent wet and dry grip performance along with high levels of safety and longevity’, says Anders Svensson, Michelin OE Commercial Account Manager. ‘And it was this combination of performance characteristics that Volvo was looking for to complement its new cars.’
To be able to offer this level of performance the MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport features a unique combination of three technologies: the Aramid fiber belt, the Bi-Compound tread band and the Variable Contact Patch 2.0.
Aramid is a high-tenacity fiber primarily used in aeronautics and protective military gear, whose key feature is its high strength and lightness. Strong and light at the same time, aramid is five times more resistant than steel at equivalent weight. Due to its variable tension, the belt is tighter in the tread area compared to the shoulders, centrifugal force is more effectively controlled and pressure is more evenly distributed.
Originally developed for race tires, Bi-Compound technology uses different rubber compounds on the left and right sides of the tread. On the outer shoulder, the tread compound contain a specific elastomer which ensures exceptional endurance during cornering, while on the inside, a different elastomer in the compound combines with a special tread design to enable the tire, on wet roads, to break through the water’s surface and adhere to even the slightest irregularities in the road.
The innovative feature of the Variable Contact Patch 2.0 is that it changes shape depending on actual driving conditions, thereby guaranteeing total vehicle control. In this way, even as the patch’s shape changes when cornering, the amount of rubber in contact with the road remains the same.
The MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport achieves a unique balance between safety and driving enjoyment that makes it suitable for everyday road use as well as the racetrack.
As a result the driver of a car equipped with MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport tires can relax and enjoy the experience, knowing that the tires deliver maximum safety even in extreme conditions of use.