Right after Volvo started using it around the beginning of 2015, Viola Martinsson's Made Of became one of my favorite songs. It's also perfect for the strong Swedish car brand that survived its troubled years and was quietly selling more luxury CUVs than anybody else in 2015. I have a sneaking suspicion that the XC90 will soon repeat the success of the much older XC60.
The same song was used for last week's debut of the Volvo V90. It reminded me of the XC70 adverts. Somehow, the wagon body resonates with a sense of adventure and off-road prowess.
Considering Volvo made some silly cars in the past two years, autoevolution firmly believes that a V90 Cross Country model is on its way to a dealership near you. What silly cars? Well, how about the S60 Cross Country sedan and the Polestar performance models that rely on the old 6-cylinder engine and its traditional automatic gearbox. Compared to those, a V90 go-anywhere wagon makes perfect sense.
Graphics manipulator Theophilus Chin is also a fan of the Volvo brand and decided to make a digital V90 Cross Country until the real one arrives. It's got increased suspension articulation, a slightly beefier body, and some protective underbody trim. It seems to be even better at doing the quattro stuff than Audi's A6.
The V90 is what we'd call the prettiest flagship wagon ever made. Underpinned by the Scalable Product Architecture, it's going to be available in five flavors - T5, T6 AWD, T8 Twin Engine AWD, D4, and D5 AWD. All of them rely on the 2-liter 4-cylinder block and offer very competitive outputs.
Volvo's announcement also makes mention of a Power Pulse diesel option for the V90. Presuming that it works the same way as on the S90, this system improves acceleration by using compressed air to spin up the turbocharger. In addition to the usual Pilot Assist, the V90 will feature new large-animal detection and run-off road mitigation features. The same Sensus connected infotainment cluster as in the XC90 will pack Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration in its well-appointed dashboard.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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