Sometimes the job calls for a soft, spacious machine that makes an art of being undemanding. In other words, a wafter.
A certain elegance to the design is always nice to have – a 5.0-litre Jag XJ will look rather better on your driveway than an ID7 – but ultimately the calibre of any wafter boils down to effortless cruising and high levels of isolation.
I needed a wafter not long ago. There were several candidates among the test cars at Autocar HQ in London. Some of them were electric, including a Polestar 3 that I know rides supremely well, but because of the sheer mileage planned, the prospect of charging up every day wasn’t an enticing one. I settled on a gleaming Volvo XC90, returning it 13 days later with 3000 miles added to the odo and fingerprints all over the huge touchscreen.
Averaging 230 miles daily for nearly a fortnight is a foolproof method of flushing out the weaknesses of any car. This near-£90k Volvo has some of those, for sure, as well as several strengths, more on which in a moment.
The itinerary? First to Anglesey Circuit, where the XC90 played a supporting role for the Maserati MCXtrema test. Photographer Jack Harrison could deliver a passably sharp tracking shot from the back of a donkey cart if need be, so the prospect of him hanging (suitably restrained with a harness) from the wide boot of an air-sprung premium SUV on a glass-smooth circuit all but guaranteed frames crisper than a porcelain poppadom. And they were.
Then it was down to Italy for a busman’s autumn getaway, in that I’d briefly disappear in order to attend the launch of the Volvo ES90 in Monaco. When I arrived in Monaco the uniformed event techies wondered why a filthy UK-registered XC90 had just teleported onto the hotel forecourt, but eventually they let me park up next to Volvo’s plush new EV fastback and take some photos.
It shouldn’t have been the case that the ageing SUV was clearly the more attractive of the two cars, but that is one of the XC90’s undeniable trump cards: it still looks superb.
Other things I liked were the raw performance of the 400bhp-plus T8 plug-in hybrid powertrain when I needed to skin a Panda on a Piedmontese hillside and the sense of light and space in the cockpit, which made the Great St Bernard Pass feel superbly immersive.
It was also rather lovely to see an old 240 Estate from the late 1980s at the top of the mountain. I grew up in the back of one. How Volvo’s designers have managed to channel an urbane, modern luxury aesthetic in the XC90 while keeping it recognisable next to the brick-like 240 needs studying.
This enormous SUV has an easy drivability that mirrors its looks, but I have to admit to expecting more of the car from a refinement perspective. As soon as I saw the spec sheet I knew that, this being a T8 model, ride quality might be its Achilles heel.
I have never driven one of these top-spec PHEVs (of any Volvo model line) that doesn’t labour potholes, expansion joints and the like, and I found the same problems here. Not helping matters is the fact this car rides on the 21in wheels. Many owners will go one larger still, but I’d be considering Plus trim, which is two grades below Ultra but lets you have a 20in wheel.
Fairly obviously for a 2.3-tonne SUV, long-range fuel economy isn’t great either. Volvo’s innovative modular engine approach, where it has for years furnished a core four-cylinder unit with turbos and superchargers and electrification as necessary, has served it well from a commercial standpoint.
However, two litres is not a lot of displacement for a car of this scope, and if you’ve depleted the battery, expect only 25mpg or so at a swift-ish cruise. It’s the same problem I had with an old PHEV Range Rover long-termer, except that car’s straight six was a little more frugal at speed, possibly because it was working less furiously.
I’m still enamoured by the sense of wellbeing that an XC90 imparts, particularly one with the Cardamom interior. And its ability to shrink big distances, so long as the motorway is in good condition and you’re happy to refuel every 390 miles, is not up for debate.
But next to the ES90, with its even more fabulous seats and sublime ride – a true wafter if ever there was one – the XC90 felt ready for retirement.
By
