Striking Viking: Volvo V40 slips out on Facebook ahead of Geneva

Some automakers try their damnedest to keep their new products under wraps until they're good and ready to show it to the world. (And of those, some succeed more than others.) Others, meanwhile, steadily leak out photos and details – through official channels or back ones – to keep us hooked. We're not quite sure which approach Volvo meant to take with its all-new V40, but we do know we've seen more of this car that's yet to be released than we've seen of others that have. This, however, is our best look at the new Swedish hatch yet.

Ostensibly, this new V40 could replace the C30 hatchback, S40 sedan and V50 wagon in one fell swoop, but we probably won't know more until the Geneva Motor Show. These leaked images come courtesy of the Facebook page of Motoryzacyjny – a Polish car mag whose name this blogger, for all his Eastern European shtetl roots, can't pronounce any better than the rest of you – and it shows us what appears to be a rather shapely sports hatch that aims to give the likes of the Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series a run for their money.

Of course, since the range has not yet been officially launched, we've yet to receive word on whether the V40 will make the transatlantic voyage forged by its Viking ancestors to the New World in which we live, but one can hope. One can certainly hope.