Crossover test

Style fights practicality and sportiness in a dash to the nearest car wash for these four crossovers

The heartland of what the buyers want: Volvo XC40 takes on DS 7, Jaguar E-Pace and BMW X1

“Some cars look good grimy, but these four seem keen to get to a car wash”

The cars are filthy. This is because it’s still wintry and we’re out in the countryside. Some cars look good grimy, but these four all seem keen to get to a car wash. I can’t put my fnger on what it is that makes some cars wear their dirt with pride, while others look like they’re battling a rash, but we are talking about crossovers here – SUVs for an urban audience.

But that’s doing them a disservice. So successful is the crossover that the latest breed is designed to be all things to all people. Hatchbacks with more space and style. These are the latest: the Jaguar E-Pace, Volvo XC40, DS 7 Crossback and BMW X1.

It’s possible to buy any of them for less than £30,000. Possible, but not easy. Say you’d decided you didn’t need more than a 150bhp, diesel, front-wheel-drive E-Pace (E doesn’t stand for electric, remember – that’s the I-Pace). But could you tolerate a manual gearbox? 17-inch wheels? Fabric seats? No, a sweet spot in the engine/gearbox/spec/options can be found at around £33–35k in each of these cars. Not cheap, a well-specced crossover.

You can have any of them with petrol engines, and you’re probably tempted, but Volvo still forecasts two-thirds of XC40 sales will be diesel, so that’s what we have, each with around 180bhp. Auto ’boxes, too, as manuals are too much like hard work; and 4WD (except the DS 7), to ensure we can get out of the car park.

Time for a static appraisal. Ignore the BMW. Depending on the distance you’re standing from it, it could just as easily be an X3 or X5 – this one’s smaller, that one’s far away, etc. Too generic BMW – pure SUV, when we’re after something new. Yes, like the X2 you have arriving in dealerships very soon…

The Volvo is something fresh. It’s built on a brand-new platform, intended from the start to be a crossover, not shared with a Mini and an MPV (X1) or borrowed from the ageing Range Rover Evoque (E-Pace). It’s a confdent piece of design, boldly square.

Volvo’s design language is well suited to a crossover; Jaguar’s, less so. I’m not sure the frm has fully resolved what a Jaguar crossover ought to look like. Same goes for DS. Here, the designers clearly realised the basic shape of the car was way too plain, so they set about hiding that away behind chrome, polished wheels, lights that spin (they really do) and so on. And then they forgot to stop. Too. Much. Design. Compare and contrast with the less adorned yet more striking Volvo.

Inside we go, and initially things look better for the DS. It’s longer than the others and on paper has easily the biggest boot. But I can only assume this is because the 555-litre fgure includes the underfloor area, while the others don’t. From where I’m standing, the BMW looks the most spacious, plus it has a lower load sill. SUV roots paying dividends. None is small, though – all have bigger boots than a VW Golf, and more rear legroom. They’ll do the family stuf.

The BMW will do it best, though. It’s notably well packaged, with good rear leg and headroom, even if the seats themselves aren’t that comfortable. That’s a rare stumble for the XC40, too – the backrest is too upright and the base isn’t long enough. The biggest packaging faux pas belongs to the DS – you can’t get your toes under the front seats. OK, you can if you raise the front seat, but the driving position is already too lofty. Lovely soft rear seats, mind you. The E-Pace (middling space, decent seat comfort) does what it needs to do, but no more.

The Jag’s dash is lifted from an F-Type. It works well. The layout is clean and well-organised. It looks – and for the most part feels – expensive (well, if it’s good enough for an £80k sports car…). You sit higher than you expect – the highest of all these cars, in fact – but the driving position is natural, the controls crisp and accurate. It’s a success. So is the Volvo. Dark, yes, and, like the Jag, you have to be able to dig your way through the touchscreen menus, but it’s logical, nicely assembled and feels like it’s worth the money. I’d spec a more welcoming interior palette, though.

The DS 7’s cabin is wilfully... berserk. It’s mad. So much design, so much not knowing when to stop designing. It’s beautiful – until you have to interact with it. There’s not much stowage because the centre console is full of electric window switches, information on the digital dash is organised in largely illegible diamond shapes, choices are buried so far within the menu system that it took two of us 20 minutes to turn the screen brightness down. The Crossback is baffingly hard to get on with.

But also very well made. It feels like a big, expensive, luxurious car, and that contrasts starkly with the BMW, which comes across as comparatively penny-pinching. The plastics are cheaper, the layout is plain, the luxury is gone. On the plus side, while the DS 7 makes you feel tense because you haven’t got a clue how to operate it or where to fnd anything, the BMW is a paragon of simplicity.

And the low dash makes it easy to see out and place the car on the road. And provided you place the emphasis on handling rather than ride, it drives well. The X1 is nimble, well-balanced and has the best engine/gearbox combo here. There’s not much to choose between any of these engines for refinement, smoothness and noise intrusion, but if you value response and alertness, you need this or the Jaguar. The downside to the BMW is that it’s a little harsh. Suspension noise intrudes, there’s a lot of racket on coarse surfaces, the damping isn’t as polished as the Jag’s – or the Volvo’s, for that matter. It feels engineered down to a cost.

The Volvo is the surprise package here. It might not steer or handle as crisply as the BMW or Jaguar (it’s not far of, though), but there’s a strong argument for the XC40 being the best all-round car to drive here. These are crossovers – they need to do the daily stuf well – and both the X1 and E-Pace are compromised. The Volvo has a more cushioned approach, tackling rough roads smoothly and dexterously. Its behaviour is calm and competent; it rides expensively on springs and dampers that have been brilliantly tuned for composure in a straight line but progressive roll resistance around corners. It doesn’t feel sporty per se, but gives you a feeling of quiet satisfaction. If only the engine were less laggy and the gearbox more alert.

Actual turn of speed once the engine is roused is good – in fact, all four deliver decent performance. You won’t want to use it all because they’re diesels and are best surfing the mid-range torque. But the DS feels way quicker than 9.9 to 62mph, and even the porky E-Pace isn’t left behind.

Jaguar ought to be both proud and ashamed of the E-Pace. Proud that they’ve made it drive the way it does when it weighs so much, ashamed of that weight in the frst place. 1,843kg. Heavier than an equivalent big brother F-Pace, 150kg heavier than either the safety-conscious XC40 or the practical X1. It smacks of a car that’s been rushed to market, a need to compete now, not do it better later. But the only time you really notice is when you look at the economy (35.7mpg where the X1 hit 42.3).

“Turn of speed is good. All four deliver decent performance”

To be fair to the Jag, it encourages enthusiastic driving. It has the sharpest, most direct steering, the least roll and is alert to throttle and brake. Because it’s tall, it doesn’t feel like it should be capable of going around corners as fat and evenly as it does. Body control is exemplary for a crossover, and when you do get on the throttle in a corner, you can feel the power transfer to the back axle. It’s the keenest to drive. But, at low speed, the frmer suspension is more of a distraction. It can’t perform the Volvo’s trick and simply relax.

The DS tries – it really does. The primary ride, the foat over undulations, is good, and the clever twin-spring set-up means most bumps don’t make it past the defences. But the secondary ride, the patter on rough surfaces, isn’t as good – the DS is fne as long as the chassis isn’t given anything too taxing to do. Lob it about and you’ll discover it’s a cumbersome thing that gives nothing through the steering.

And that’s fne. Honestly. DS is a luxury marque, not a sporting one. A particular type of luxury, true, one that puts all the glitz on the surface and attempts to hide the more mundane realities underneath. But it is quiet and comfortable and, well, bafingly French. Also expensive. A comparative online lease calculator said £513 per month. Mind you, the Jag’s £534. Meanwhile both the BMW and Volvo will cost you roughly £140 per month less. That’s a huge amount.

There is an easy winner here, and that’s the Volvo XC40. It’s fresh, modern, intelligent, cleverly targeted, attractively designed and well-executed. It shows real ability across the board. It’s good to spend time in, easy to interact with, is cosseting when you want, yet quietly satisfying, too. It’s the all-round package.

The others string out behind it. The E-Pace and X1 battle it out for second and third. Which you place on top depends whether you prioritise practicality or style and driving. We’ve given the nod to the Jaguar because it fts the crossover brief better, with its upmarket interior and crisp dynamics. It might be heavy, and based around old underpinnings, but Jaguar has done well with the cards it dealt itself.

But it has no time to stand still. If we could have got hold of an X2 in time for this test instead of an X1, we would have. The X1 is perhaps too sensible, but what undermines it more is the fact it doesn’t feel expensive. All its rivals here have more upmarket cabins and better noise insulation, while the DS 7 is a notably more luxurious, tactile product. How about that? Unfortunately, in other areas the French car is just too idiosyncratic, too much of a leftfeld choice to succeed.

The crossover class is maturing. We might reject the needless of-road image, but in other areas – comfort, equipment, practicality – they’re carving a niche for themselves above conventional hatchbacks. And the

Volvo XC40 is carving it deepest of all.

“The XC40 shows real ability across the board. It’s the all-round package”