Another coupe SUV mooted
They’re all at it; even normally sensible Volvo. Having been bitten by the SUV bug, the storied Scandi firm is riding high on the successes of zeitgeist-fulfilling XC60 and XC40 models. Now it says a curvy XC50 could be on the cards.
The revelation stems from an interview Volvo’s senior vicepresident for Europe, the brilliantly named Lex Kerssemakers had with British motoring outlet Auto Express.
He reckons the company — which now has plenty of Geely manufacturing money sloshing around its coffers — could probably afford to take a more niche approach to its model line-up in the future.
Sorry, but here at The Good Oil offices, we remain a touch cynical about this whole coupelike SUV thing.
BMW invented it with the X6 the better part of a decade ago, with rival manufacturer Mercedes-Benz pretending it was something it had planned to do all along a few years later. The GLC and GLE coupe pairing was unveiled in 2015.
No one has followed ze Chermin lead on the coupe-SUV (well, aside from Ssangyong in 2009 with the bulbous Actyon crossover thingy, which isn’t to be confused with the ute; Google it). That hasn’t stopped plenty of people opting for slightly less rear headroom and luggage capacity than a conventional SUV though; BMW especially has sold plenty of X6s and they even introduced a smaller X4 fastback a few years later.
Kerssemakers did stress that such an addition to the model range wouldn’t be coming any time soon, though. Volvo is in the midst of ensuring everything it sells will be available with a PHEV or BEV electric motor option. There’ll apparently be plenty of time for chin-stroking over blueprints of pointlessly impractical coupe-SUVs after 2020.