mrmako

Pics then a short review. Apologize as these are pics that protected me from damage claims as a rental:










First take: The company, Lynk and Co. is a joint venture between Volvo and Geeley of China. The car is Swedish designed, but Chinese in origin and shares parts with Volvo. I think their idea was a fully connected car on the internet. More on that later.

Overall appearance and interior: The car looks a bit ungainly, kind of a smaller car lifted by the large wheels. You get the feeling that it will be a bit awkward but the vehicle seems nice enough. From the last photo you can see that luggage area is decent behind the rear seat. I wound up carrying luggage for three in there with one seat folded down (60/40 split rear seating). The front seats are very comfortable. Made a drive from Naples to Rome and it was fine for the two hour drive. Nice lumbar support and seating position. They must have used Volvo seats. The fabric was good quality and was comfortable.

1. Sight lines and ergonomics: The sight lines are a bit odd, considering the height of the hood and the rake of the windshield. Infotainment in the middle screen was good. The car is on the internet, so you can use your phone to connect to it and surf the web. The mapping software is a touch slow but not horrible. All buttons and switch gear felt good and were easy to get to. Nice touch to add two knobs external to the big display for HVAC control. Steering wheel is flat bottom, which made some turns a bit easier. Material feels like leather,and had good stitching, along with the rest of the inside and dash area.

2. Engine and ride: The car's engine was responsive, and being a mild hybrid you could recharge the battery a little bit while driving. When the car switched to battery it was not intrusive but you could tell there was a switch. Not loud or anything. You get used to it, then it becomes unnoticeable. Only a very slight stutter going from full stop (engine off) to acceleration. It can get going if you really get into the gas pedal, but you're not going to win many 0-60 races in this. I think my butt estimates about 8.0 second 0-60 time. It rode well on the Autostrade. Bumps were fairly well absorbed, as the tires have a high sidewall. Steering was electronic, so at times it felt a bit artificial. I didn't feel very connected tot the road, so that was an issue, however it seems to be ok for this car. On city streets you do feel some harshness, but not bad.

3. Electric mode and mileage: One thing the car does fairly well is recharge when coasting, and applying the brakes. This gave a small amount of recharge to the system. I was not able to test out charging it fully. The gas mileage was very good, averaging close to 40 MPG. This was good 50/50 split of city and highway driving.

Not a horrible car by any means, but I wanted to share as most people don't know much about this car. Unsure of pricing as well. Car and Driver did a small write up, but the car I had was newer.

Car and Driver Article

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

I had no idea that was a thing. Thank you for the review and photos!

1killercls

Anybody hurt in that wreck?

All kidding aside, nice review.

mrmako

By looking at it, you might think "modern Aztec"? Oh, wreck... Nah, in Europe they try to get every Euro out of you on rentals. Had an XC90 up in Germany and they wanted to have me pay 500 Euro for a nick in the wheel. I had pictures prior to, but a bit fuzzy. The guy let me off.