NVH
ILLUST
RATION
by
TIM
MARRS
Jamie KitmanVIBRATION &
HARSHNESS
NOISE,
18
AUTOMOBILEMAG.COMLIKE SOME SCRAPPY Nordic rally driver
of yore, Volvo regained control of the sliding car
that was its corporate self just before it drifted
over a cliff. Thanks to billions pumped into its
tank by a new adoptive parent, China’s Geely, the
smart and feisty Swede gathered its perilously
sideways mount to once again nip at the heels
of the world’s front-running car manufacturers,
with a technological attack and design coherence
impressive today in absolute terms but especially
for a company of its small size.
Along these lines, it was hard at first sight not
to be impressed by the company’s new V60. Nor
could you easily overstate its importance. Although traditional wagons are
not what they once were for the automobile industry, they continue to
play an outsized role in Volvo’s psychographic space. The XC60 and XC
crossovers outsell their V60 and V90 wagon cousins, but who says cross-
overs aren’t best thought of as a subset of wagons, anyway?
Semantics aside, we know which we prefer—the genuine article, the wag-
on that doesn’t depend on height for its utility. Regular readers will know I
have shown pronounced signs of Volvo-wagon obsession for a long time. A
series of four, identical but different, light green 1967 122S wagons owned
over the better part of my driving lifetime is but one piece of the evidence.
Lest you’ve forgotten, Thor’s hammer smacked me upside the head so
hard as a child that, in 2017, it led me to lead a convoy of wagons repre-
senting most of the Sino-Swedish company’s American-wagon history on
a symbolic sojourn to Ridgeville, South Carolina, where they welcomed
the company and its first U.S. factory on behalf of wagon fans everywhere.
The company is building the V60’s fraternal twin, the S60 sedan, in Rid-
geville, to start, up to 100,000 per year. You expect it will export a bunch ofthem; it’s hard to see the U.S. market gobbling
up that many S60s any time soon. Sadly.
Harsh market realities aside, it figured I’d
be predisposed to the new V60 because on the
surface it has everything going for it. It’s svelte
and beautiful in a way few wagons have ever
been, with not a single wrong line or misguided
detail to apologize for. It’s the perfect antidote
to the sharp-edged transformer styling that
dominates today’s crossovers. With increasingly
random cuts and slashes serving no purpose,
those vehicles have plenty to apologize for.
For handsomeness, the new Volvo equals
the best BMW 3 Series wagons of recent mem-
ory and beats the Buick Regal TourX. Jacked
up and beclad for American duty, its Euro good
looks are less affected than might have been
feared. The Volvo also has an interior of excep-
tional quality for our times, available in cloth
or leather. Other materials and shapes get high
marks for style and the impression of quality.
The front seats are as comfy as seats can get.
During that 2017 trip to Ridgeville, I hung
out with the V60’s big brother, the V90, and was
charmed by its presence and the way it easily
ate up highway miles. It drove superbly, looked
great, and was larger than other wagons, even
if it was minus the third-row seat option Volvo
used to specialize in. Given the company’s pledge
that by 2020, no one in a new Volvo will be killed
in a crash, it leaves you to wonder if those third
rows were actually as safe as we used to assume.
My main criticisms of the V90 were that its
27-mpg highway fuel economy didn’t improve
much on the economy of a 1967 122S with twin
SU carburetors. And the driver assists, including
a self-driving function that allows for up to 18
seconds of hands-off operation, were more often
intrusive, driving-pleasure negatives.
I’ve just driven a V60 T6 AWD Inscription,
with every option and a very loaded $61,000 price
tag. In March, I drove a lower-spec, cloth-seated
car. Even before factoring in a $17,000 savings, I
think I prefer the cloth car. Beautiful cars, both,
but either way, the complaints remained the same.
First, mediocre fuel economy. Second, as an enthu-
siastic yet reasonably careful driver, the frequent
intervention of the well-intentioned “driver aids”
drove me part mad. I hate the feeling of trying to
steer out of my lane to avoid a pothole only to have
the steering wheel argue with me. Or the cars’
tendency to panic stop on my behalf when I was
merely backing out of driveways.
Perhaps this is the new normal and Volvo
is ahead of the curve. Along with its pledge to
govern its cars to a 112-mph top speed, I can
appreciate the achievement. But I don’t have
to like it. AMTHOUGHTS ON
THE LAUNCH OF A NEW
VOLVO WAGON