Volvo XC 60

The high-concept, low-impact XC60 sees Volvo establish its own niche in the fiercely contested medium-SUV division. If you can’t beat ’em, play a different game…

- Andy Enright

AS SLIPS of the tongue go, it was telling. “We hope you enjoy...” then a slight furrowing of the brow as Magdalena Morin, Volvo’s senior program director for the 60 series cars mentally translated the right descriptor of the XC60, “this perfect car.” Perfect. That’s quite some billing. Everybody else, lay down your tools, it’s not going to get any better than this. Perhaps you can forgive Morin a certain pride in a job well done. The old XC60 set a heck of a benchmark, having been on sale for nine years, with 2016 – its final full year on sale – netting its highest sales figures. That’s not supposed to happen. The usual template is for cars to shift big numbers in the first three years whereupon buyer interest tails off. Which is why at first glance, it looks as if Volvo has played the design of the latest XC60 extremely safe.

It’s anything but a cop-out, though. In fact, this might be the biggest roll of the dice in the whole sector. The hugely customisable chassis architecture that underpins the XC60 – SPA, Scalable Product Architecture – won’t accept any engine bigger than a doughty four-pot up front. Forget the big V6s or five-pot warblers of the past. Gothenburg is betting the house that you won’t miss ’em. Lutz Steigler, Volvo’s director of powertrains, accepts that this may cost a few customers. “Yes, of course there will be some who want a bigger engine and we may not retain those customers,” he says. “But we are confident that we will attract more new customers as a result of improved efficiency.”