I get my chops busted for saying nice things about Volvo every now and again but I get it. The company has not had the biggest performance image here in the USA and while their new crop of cars have innovative and powerful engines, people are somehow still stuck on the idea that the cars are boring and soulless. That’s wrong and it is also wrong to think that there aren’t hot rodders on the Volvo engineering staff and the video below proves it. This is the introduction of what Volvo is calling the High Performance Drive-E Powertrain Concept. Currently there are a couple of Drive-E engines available for powering Volvo cars. Recently I spent a week with one equipped with a four banger that used a turbo and a supercharger to produce some 320hp and delivery over 30mpg on the highway. That car had power and torque for days and I’d classify it as “pretty fast”. This one? Yeah this little SOB makes 450hp! Flat nasty out of only about two liters.

What’s the big difference here? Well this engine uses two turbos that come together in a Y and that Y feeds what looks and sounds to be an electrically powered centrifugal supercharger, effectively creating a really nasty little compound boost setup. The engine uses a specially designed Denso EFI setup and lots of other trick parts that their suppliers developed but we’d bet you dollars to donuts that this engine will be available (making less than 450hp) in next year’s or the true 2016 models. We bet it comes out with a 400hp rating on it in Polestar models and other stuff. Volvo isn’t a company to go off on wild engineering exercises that have no root in production. As you will hear the exceptionally stiff engineers describe, the company is constantly working to achieve a zero emissions standard and building more efficient engines is the result. Typically, more efficient engines make more power!

Say whatever you want about the badge on the valve cover, but this little engine would be hellacious in a multitude of small cars, land speed racing vehicles, and even a small scale dragster. It is tiny, light, and makes 450hp with virtually zero lag of any sort. DO WANT!

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THE VIDEO INTRODUCING THIS MEAN LITTLE ENGINE FROM VOLVO – 450HP AND AN ELECTRIC BLOWER?