Volvo XC60 D5 (2008) CAR review and videos

Now, what was that movie wherein Dudley Moore played the advertising man whose copy simply told the truth? Can’t remember… But having promoted an airline on the sole basis that it ‘crashed less often than any other’, he went on to immortalise Volvos with the strap-line ‘They’re boxy… But they’re safe’.

Now swallowed whole by Ford in America, it was designer Peter Horbury who, in his own inimitable style, began the process of putting the ‘boxy’ tag to the sword. Nor was he afraid to take a tilt at the company’s legendary functionality: standing by the open tailgate of a freshly launched XC90, we were discussing the practicality of loading assorted stuff on board. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t want to do that’ he said. ‘It would make the carpets all muddy…’

Safety, however, is something on which the company has consistently failed to compromise, no matter how sexy it isn’t. And Volvo is billing the new XC60 as the safest car they’ve ever made.

So where does the XC60 fit into the Volvo line-up?

Not being one of their standard road cars in plastic nappies, like the XC70, it has more in common with the XC90. It’s based on the S80 with 200mm cut out of it, and is the same dimension shorter than the XC70.

The next step up the ladder of current design director Steve Mattin’s determination to alter the perception of Volvo design DNA from ‘Do Not Abandon’ to ‘Dramatic New Approach’, it’s really quite a handsome thing. In profile, the pinched, ‘Coke bottle’ sides that first appeared on Horbury’s S80 are even more exaggerated, whilst the SUV-ubiquitous rising belt-line is here so exaggerated that views out for small people sitting in the back are less than wholesome, incurring the B-road risk of more than mud on those carpets.

Nose and rump receive the most dramatic treatment, with a more confident grille treatment complimenting the next-generation stylisation of Volvo’s signature tail lamp cluster, now incorporating running lights like a drizzle of lava flowing over those matronly hips. Not so successful is the rear bumper, which is in danger of becoming an upturned bridge too far.

Overall, however, the effect is pretty pleasing, and makes the XC60 a worthy stylistic adversary for the likes of Audi’s Q5, BMW’s horrid little X3 and the impending gleam of Mercedes’ GLK.

Click 'Next' below to read more of our Volvo XC60 first drive

Scroll down to page to the embedded player to view video of the Volvo XC60 in action