A Volvo delight
IF you are going to lay down the gauntlet to the premium car marques when vying for sales then your contender has to have some unique selling points and the latest Volvo saloon certainly has plenty.
Volvo believes its S90 is the company’s best challenger yet to the German dominance in the executive sector and the only way to test such a bold statement was to take the car on a lengthy road trip - after all cars in this segment will be expected to eat up the motorway miles with ease.
So with that in mind I set off from my home in Wales and headed due west to Fishguard. From there it was three and a half hours on a ferry to Ireland and with the captain forecasting gale force winds and heavy swells I was hoping my £42,000-plus S90 with just 615 miles on the clock was coping okay on a lower deck.
The car was the S90 D5 PowerPulse AWD in range-topping Inscription trim. It carried a £42,455 price-tag that increased to £49,880 with options fitted and, thankfully, when we arrived safely at Rosslare harbour the car was unscathed and the road trip was ready to begin in earnest.
We had a planned route that would take us directly across Southern Ireland to Galway and then all the way down the west and southern coastline which is otherwise known as the Wild Atlantic Way.
It was a journey that would see the mileage trip top the 1,480-mile mark and it gave me the opportunity to test out the sporty saloon in all sorts of driving conditions.
The S90 was powered by a 2.0litre 235bhp diesel engine mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. It could reach from 0-62mph in 7.0 seconds, topped out at 145mph and could deliver combined fuel economy of 58.9mpg with carbon emissions of 127g/km.
The S90 is super roomy and the boot easily swallowed up enough coats, walking boots, bags, wet weather gear and clothes to suit all seasons, along with laptops, chargers, maps, books and a list that goes on and on. The official capacity is 500 litres by the way.
Up front there is plenty of room to stretch out and the extra storage facilities include a glovebox, practically-sized door pockets, convenient nets, cup holders, a deep central bin and a couple of handy trays.
All the on-board technology is nice and easy to use. There was a slight issue in that the sat nav seemed to take a couple of days to find our location accurately and the tyre pressure monitor sent out a couple of warnings, but both of these blips could easily be pinned down to almost four hours enduring storm conditions in the Irish Sea.