Ice Capades! Driving Polestar's 2, 3, and 4 Arctic Circle Editions

MotorTrend

Swedish electric-car maker Polestar is going ice racing with three one-off models in order to show everyone that it can deliver fun performance vehicles..

Transcript

00:00Meet the Polestar Arctic Circle Edition vehicles.

00:26What have they done?

00:27Polestar has gone ahead and winterized their entire lineup, the two, the three, and the

00:31four.

00:32It's the same basic formula.

00:34You raise them up in the air a little bit, you put some cool wheels on them, some good

00:38winter tires, maybe strap a set of skis or a spare tire to the roof, add some lights

00:42and boom, you've got vehicles that competed in the fat international ice race.

00:49Are these three vehicles concept cars?

00:52Yes.

00:53Are they going to put any of these into production?

00:55Right now, Polestar is saying no, but you never know.

00:58Should they put any of these three into production?

01:01That's what we're going to find out.

01:10We're driving the Polestar 2 Arctic Circle Edition.

01:26What is it?

01:27All right.

01:28Do you remember the Polestar 2 BST?

01:32I just learned that that thing stood for beast, but that was the hot hatch, lowered performance

01:37version of the Polestar 2.

01:40Its key ingredient were these three-way adjustable Ohlins dampers, and it was real stiff and

01:44real sporty.

01:45Well, you start with that, but you make the dampers real soft, and then you raise the

01:51ride height 30 mil, you put on softer, taller springs to accommodate for the ride height,

01:56you put on some OZ racing wheels in white, of course, some winter tires, and boom, you've

02:01got yourself a really good winter play thing.

02:05That's what we're driving here.

02:07The formula is kind of that simple, although there's a little bit more to it than that,

02:12but it works, and it works great, and it shows that, again, with small, thoughtful tweaks,

02:18you can really transform the character of a vehicle.

02:23Another thing they've done is this actually has quite nice steering, and one of the reasons

02:27why is that they've stiffened the rear.

02:29How'd they do that?

02:30They actually put a bar across the rear strut tower, so it's got a nice, big, fat brace

02:35back there, which stiffens it up, and so you have quick steering, stiff rear end, and

02:40it works, even in beautiful winter conditions like we have here in the Salzburg area of

02:45Austria.

02:46Look, it's minus one below Celsius, whatever that is, I think 31 degrees, something like

02:54that, and the road's wet, and there's a little bit of ice, and a little bit of mud, and a

02:59little bit of whatever, and it's just going great.

03:03If you live in the snowy part of the world, I could totally see having something like

03:06this as your daily, because, again, it just works.

03:10Now, you might be saying to yourself, wait a second, Polestar 2, didn't that come out

03:15a while ago?

03:16Yes, yes it did, which is why we're going to jump into the Polestar 3.

03:33All right, now we are in the Polestar 3 Arctic Circle Edition.

03:47It's the same idea as the 2, only scaled up for a larger, more powerful SUV.

03:52The air suspension's been replaced by steel springs.

03:56This has the three-way adjustable Ohlins dampers, same type of valving that the Polestar 2 has,

04:02only they're thicker, more powerful dampers to handle a larger, heavier vehicle.

04:07It's got the OZ racing wheels.

04:09They're 20-inch now instead of 19.

04:11It's got some nice winter tires on it, which we need today.

04:15You'll see it also has this cool roof rack on it, which apparently took a lot more time

04:18to install than some of the other parts of the car.

04:21It's got some strut tower bracing up front to improve the steering feel.

04:25On that roof rack, you'll see there's a big spare tire, another with the OZ racing wheel.

04:29It's got some traction boards, all that kind of fun off-road stuff, some auxiliary lighting.

04:33In fact, these buttons here, they activate the auxiliary lighting, except for the third

04:37one back here, which would turn on the winch.

04:40No winch today.

04:41Why not?

04:42This thing was ice racing, and a winch on the front would just kill the handling.

04:45You don't really need it.

04:47I wouldn't say minimal changes, but with just a few changes, you can really radically transform

04:55the character of the car.

04:56We saw that with the Mustang Mach-E Rally, where they took a Mustang Mach-E GT, nobody's

05:02favorite car, and by raising the ride height, putting it on some off-road tires, and again,

05:09white OZ racing wheels, you've really made a desirable product.

05:12I think the same thing is happening here with the Polestar 3 Arctic Circle Edition.

05:26And finally, we come to the Polestar 4 Arctic Circle Edition.

05:42The 4 is a more modern platform than the other two.

05:45This is actually a new platform that's shared with Geely and Zeker, and it is the big dog

05:51in terms of performance and power, 536 horsepower, 506 pound-feet of torque, and believe you

05:58me, it scoots.

06:00Even in bad winter conditions like this, it scoots.

06:04Same formula as the other two.

06:06It's got the three-way adjustable all-in-one dampers.

06:08This actually, this body is so much more stiff than the other two, they didn't have to do

06:11any additional bracing.

06:13Great steering, great performance, taller springs, softer springs for more of an off-road

06:18type thing.

06:19They do have one major difference, and that is this, this black handle, this siren song

06:25of a hydraulic handbrake that I stupidly promised Polestar I wouldn't pull on a public road,

06:31and pathetically, I'm a man of my word, so I haven't yanked it, and I'm really, really

06:35tempted to, but I digress.

06:41This is cool.

06:42I don't know who needs a winter speedster, but I think if you go back to the other two,

06:47Polestar's already built the two BST.

06:50I think they'd actually have a better chance of selling more of the Arctic Circle edition,

06:55and then you get to that three, and you think about how did society change during COVID,

07:00especially in the States.

07:01Well, we fell in love with getting out of town, with overlanding, boondocking, whatever

07:07you want to call it.

07:08I think if you take a nice family SUV, and you endow it with the ability to really go

07:13places, to get out there and explore, I think you've really got something.

07:19Of the three Polestar Arctic editions that I drove, the one I'm going to be dreaming

07:23about as fast and as fun as this one is, is that three.

07:26I really think, if you're out there listening, Polestar, build that one.

07:31It's very cool, and I think America can breathe it up.

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