VOLVO XC60
Late but dressed to impress
IF TIMING is everything, then the fashionably late, yet beautifully calculated entrance of Volvo’s secondgeneration XC60 should count in its favour. Nine years after the debut of its hugely successful, if rather unrefined and chunky predecessor, the all-new Volvo XC60 lobs at exactly the right moment to steal attention from the Range Rover Velar, BMW’S all-new X3, and Audi’s still-fresh new-gen Q5. But this Swedish SUV’S mission isn’t just to play the competition. The new XC60 goes beyond mere diversion tactics with convincing spec, style and substance.
If you’re allergic to blending into the SUV crowd, then the 2018 XC60 has your design sensibility scrawled all over its shapely, beautifully detailed form. And if you think the XC60 looks like an XC90’S younger, sexier sibling, that’s a reasonable comparison given that almost half of their components are shared. The biggest difference is in wheelbase – the XC60’S is 119mm shorter at 2865mm – and in the real world, you can feel the benefits of the XC60’S more compact dimensions and sportier suspension tune.
On fast, flowing roads, the XC60’S chassis conveys a planted and secure feel, while tight bends prove there’s innate poise in the way this SUV strings corners together. But all is not rosy. The steering – while accurate and consistently weighted – has minimal true feel, meaning you rely solely on the seat of your pants when hustling the XC60 at speed. And the damping of the two XC60S we drove with fixed-rate suspension – D4 and T5 Inscriptions, each wearing 255/45R20 Michelin Latitudes – felt unresolved. Supple at times, with mostly acceptable body control, the standard XC60 is prone to overreacting to potholes and hits.
Much like the XC90, the airsuspended T8 with adaptive damping does a highly convincing job of making the XC60 feel plush. At urban speeds on some truly rubbish surfaces, the T8’s 255/40R21 Pirelli P Zeros wafted over the calamity raging beneath when set to the Everyday suspension mode. But there’s a lot more pitch and dive than the standard car, especially when asking for the full 300kw/640nm.
Nailing 100km/ h in 5.3sec sees the XC60 T8 lift its nose and charge seamlessly forward, accompanied by a small amount of torque steer but also seriously urgent forward thrust. It sounds good too – sweetly raspy, but with enough meat to mirror the performance – though the T8’s laughably over-sensitive regenerative braking response requires an almost tantric delicacy.
Of the non-hybrid pair, it’s the excellent 140kw/400nm turbo
diesel D4 that impressed us, more so than the 187kw/350nm turbo-petrol T5. There’s something about the D4’s delightfully refined, characterful and torquey nature that suits the XC60’S personality, especially in Dynamic drive mode. While the sportier mode firms up the steering to an acceptable degree, it turns the T5’s throttle pedal into a virtual light-switch, much like the T8’s braking set-up. But this somehow works with the diesel’s relaxed delivery.
And that’s the thing with the XC60 – there’s so much to play with in terms of trim level (Momentum, Inscription, R-design), powertrain, equipment and trim that by virtue of its aesthetic desirability alone, you can see why punters might flock to it.
Even the base D4 at $ 59,990 delivers plenty for the money. It’s just a pity that the finessing of the XC60’S engineering calibrations can’t also be optioned in.