Volvo XC 90: A good car made substantially better
The Trollhatten outfit hit the buffers after former owners General Motors refused to cave on the issue of the value of the intellectual rights to Saab’s technologies to potential Chinese investors.
Volvo very nearly found itself in the same situation until its’ owners Ford decided the intellectual rights issue was not such a big deal after all and promptly sold the business off to the Chinese Geely Corporation for $1.8bn in 2010.
Initial fears that the new owners would simply suck Volvo dry and spit out the remains after moving all its’ operations back to home turf proved to be wide of the mark and in a commendable move, not only did it act immediately to reinforce the company’s Swedish operations, but it piled in the necessary investment cash to ensure the future would see the company moving quickly forward in a planned and coherent manner.
Now, five years on and Volvo has just launched the latest version of its’ excellent XC90 SUV and is set to unveil a battery of new and exciting models, including the S90 executive saloon which we got an early glimpse of last week and which will be unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show early next year. A raft of others are set to follow.
But, having just tested the new XC90, I can report that if the evidence of this car is anything to go by then the future for Volvo is very bright indeed. This is among the very best cars I have driven in the past year and could well turn out to be a benchmark in the SUV class.
It has proven those naysayers who maintained that Volvo’s purchase by the Chinese would doom the Gothenburg concern to oblivion to have been completely wide of the mark.
Instead this car will, I predict, revitalise Volvo to the point where it is once more a hugely viable going concern and one which will put the shivers on such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Land Rover, the latter of whom, of course, was in a similar situation to the Swedish company not so long ago, before being bought out by a foreign investor.
The new XC90 was always going to have a troublesome birth. For a start Volvo had a limited amount of time to design and build it — although it is probably reasonable enough to assume that the design work had started long before Ford off-loaded it.
Secondly, it had to make sure the car was good, or even better than good, otherwise everyone involved would have been wasting their time and money.
Well, even with a short-ish gestation period and with no room for manoeuvre on the quality of the product, Volvo has come up trumps. And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Already the company is clocking up record sales with the XC90 in its two most important markets, America and China. European sales too are only going one way — up.
The car is based on Volvo’s new SPAR (scalable product architecture) platform which will form the basis of many future products and although it is completely new from top to bottom, the company has sensibly retained much of the look of the old version which was, after all, hugely popular in its’ own right.
It utilises plenty of high tensile steel — more than any other car in the class — and is claimed to be much lighter, safer and stronger than its predecessor. In fairness, it certainly lives up to those claims.
It will only utilise four cylinder engines — all of them new and designed and built in-house — and this has allowed the designers stretch the wheelbase and shorten front and rear overhangs, all of which have positive implications for passenger comfort and interior space as well as handling and ride.
We drove the D5 engined AWD Momentum version of the car and I have to say that on every front it truly surpassed expectations. The engine, eight speed gearbox and chassis all combine to make this a real drivers’ car, while the sheer opulence of the exterior and interior design will leave you breathless. Sort of Ikea on wheels.
As seven-seater, the XC90 does have limitations on cargo space when the rearmost seats are utilised, but the plus side of that is you can fit seven adults into the thing as the rear seats are not just for kids or pygmies.
On the road, this thing just glides along and the 222bhp on offer from the turbodiesel powerplant is plenty good to shift this two tonne beast along with alacrity. The 0-100kph capability is just under eight seconds and top speed is 220kph.
The engine meshes nicely with the standard eight speed auto box which rarely struggles to find the right cog at the right time. On top of that, claimed economy (5.7 l/100km or 49mpg — realistically sub-40) and emissions (152g/km for a €390 annual tax bill) don’t make it unreasonable.
Handling and ride are predictable and pleasing and really very car-like, as a top SUV should be nowadays. It does not wallow or float about the place like a drunk, as so many of these things do and responds well to steering inputs. Check it out on a B-road to see for yourself.
As this is a Volvo, there is a raft of safety kit as standard and while that is all very reassuring, the XC90 does however have a surprise or two. Hit a bad bump at speed and the seat belt pre-tensioners will immediately do their thing and you’ll find yourself being severely pre-tensioned into the drivers’ seat.
Also the sensors which alert you to the proximity of other vehicles is a tad too sensitive and flashing red warning lights — which are particularly alarming at night — suddenly flare in front of your eyes and, frankly, scare the crap out of you when there is no need for them to do so.
But, for anyone who used to own an XC90, the new car will come as a very pleasing surprise and they will have no difficulty changing one for the other. For anyone coming to it for the first time, they will be surprised by Volvo’s achievement here.
In potentially very difficult circumstances Volvo has re-imagined a car which was originally very good indeed and has made substantially better. If this is a sign of things to come then Volvo is going to be with us for a very long time indeed. Thanks China.
Volvo XC 90
From €70,950 - €75,530 as tested.
A brand new in-house unit from Volvo and also smaller-than-previous engines in the XC90 it works on all levels — performance, economy and emissions.
Comes pretty much brim-full of kit and unlike its main German rivals, extra stuff does not cost a fortune. Do specify a spare tyre though as the standard tyre sealant kit is a waste of time.
A real game-changer for Volvo.
