Wagon wheels
WE ALL TURN into our parents eventually, and I know just when it happened to me: driving through the Cotswolds one evening in the Volvo estate, listening to Friday Night is Music Night on Radio 2. (In my defence, the show’s theme that week was great film scores, so it was at least acceptably blokey.)
The moment was especially poignant because I inherited this car from my father, who died quite suddenly from cancer five years ago. I’d never seen myself as owning a Volvo but I’ve since become smitten. It’s a lovely old battlewagon, supremely relaxing to drive and yet with remarkable punch from its 185bhp five-pot turbodiesel. I think it looks great, too; a definite modern classic.
The XC70 has all-wheel drive, and normally I’d have swapped to my set of spare alloys and winter tyres by now, for ultimate cold-weather grip – but, as described in Octane 207, I fitted a set of Goodyear 4Season tyres back in May. These tyres are designed to be used year-round, in winter as well as summer, to avoid the faff of having to swap wheels over twice a year. Until recently, they’d not had to deal with anything worse than mild and wet weather, but an inch or two of snow over Christmas seemed the ideal opportunity to try them in more challenging conditions.
The result? Very impressive! OK, the snow wasn’t deep or compacted, and I could sense that the Goodyears weren’t quite as effective as my Dunlop Ultragrip ‘winters’ in terms of braking and steering, but they kept the Volvo moving where summer tyres would have failed miserably.
Besides its all-wheel-drive capability, the Volvo’s other great virtue is, of course, its huge loadspace. A trip to collect a 1920s ‘BP’ enamel sign for the workshop wall was a piece of cake, the 48in by 30in sign looking almost lost in the back of the car. My dad liked quality kit, and I now totally understand why he bought the XC70. It’s the most useful vehicle I’ve ever owned.