Leveraging Volvo’s premium status

A MILD Volvo overdose elicited by time in an XC40 in the heart of M1 roadworks en route to a drive of the new V60 got me thinking...

Firstly, having —inally swapped a foothold for a stronghold in the premium automotive arena, where does Volvo design go from here? And, secondly, does this newfound security of status automatically dictate that every Volvo should be an automatic?

On the basis that the company has only recently got all its ducts in a row and that there must now follow some years of gentle tweaking and —ine-tuning before there’s any danger of inadvertently inhaling a Banglelike design irritant, the second question is, perhaps, more interesting.

R8 aside, I can’t remember the last time I drove a manual Audi. The same applies to Mercedes, and even quick iterations of ‘the Ultimate Driving Machine’ spurn the lever these days. I mention these other premium types because unlike the transmission in our XC60, the XC40 I drove boasted a gearlever attached to just three cylinders, and I was also cornered into sampling a manual V60. In both cases it didn’t feel seemly changing gear. Perhaps I’m getting old. Certainly Volvo is growing up.

In less danger of ageing much further are the disgusting local sparrows and their errant ablutions. Mercifully, the evil-looking poo mentioned last month left no marks on the XC60’s metallic carapace. But, short of installing tiny Armitage Shanks loos throughout the capacious clematis in which the colony bickers, and teaching the birds to use them, I can see no end to this ongoing, um, issue. Thank God geese don’t live in trees.