The Polestar 1 is a turbocharged, supercharged, plug-in hybrid enigma

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  This attractive GT is the Polestar 1, a new plug-in hybrid EV from a new sister company to Volvo. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

SAN FRANCISCO-Few cars in recent times have piqued my interest quite like the Polestar 1. I like 600-horsepower grand touring cars, particularly when they're dressed up in handmade carbon fiber bodies. I like plug-in hybrids even more, particularly if they come with a battery big enough to be useful. And this car is both of those. It features a supercharged, turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline engine for the front wheels and a pair of electric motors fed by a 34kWh battery at the rear. Just 1,500 will be built during the next three years, and at $155,000, they aren't cheap.

But the Polestar isn't supposed to sell in volume. It's a halo car, a mission statement, a four-wheel calling card from a startup automaker that will follow it up with an affordable (and Android-based) electric car early in 2020. Well, I say startup-spin-off might be more accurate. As the name suggests, it's the first car from Polestar, a name that used to mean souped-up Volvos and touring-car racing. Now it's a standalone brand that's going to explore the idea of electric performance cars.

If the Polestar 1 looks familiar, that's understandable. We first saw something that looked like it in 2013's Volvo Concept Coupe, and visually it shares a design language with Volvo's current -60 and -90 series cars. That's no bad thing-Volvo makes some lookers right now (particularly wagons). But not one has quite the visual drama of the Polestar 1, which takes that design language and passes it through a muscle-car filter.

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