Review: 2019 Volvo S60

Volvo has not put a foot wrong for the past couple of years. Its cars look better than ever and have great tech inside now, it’s doing clever new things with online ordering and subscription ownership models, and now it appears to have built a dynamic small saloon.

The S60 shares that gorgeous new family rear with its bigger S90 sibling, the taillights spreading out across the boot to enhance the status of the premium Swedish marque (the S60 is currently on sale in R-Design spec only, which is the top one, giving a polished, sporty finish to the design).

Inside, there’s the now-familiar big tablet touchscreen, which houses every function going. Users can pinch the map to zoom in, and swipe between pages of functions, iPad-style. There’s plenty of leg room and a decent sized boot, too.

But it’s on the move that the S60 truly excels, and delights. It is exceptionally quiet, both at idling and at motorway speeds. The sound deadening for the cabin and the engine bay is fantastic, and occupants will be hard pressed to hear the wind, road or engine. If it’s a rorty exhaust you’re after the S60 won’t be for you, but if you yearn for some peace and quiet from the city’s babble, this could be the ticket.

The S60 has launched with just one petrol engine, the 2.0-litre T5, mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. There will be no diesel, understandably, given the prevailing political winds, but there will be a “Twin Engine” plug-in hybrid in the near future.

The T5 will tick most boxes: it’s quiet, spritely and smooth on the overtake and, yes, it has a touch of the sportiness about it. Whoa. Volvo, sporty? You’d better believe it. And yes, we know Volvo is about to restrict all its cars to a top speed of 112mph, but if, like most people, you measure your kicks by acceleration rather than top speed, you’ll be pleasantly surprised (0-62mph is 6.5 seconds), especially if you use the steering-wheel flappy paddles to click along through the cogs.

Being a Volvo, the S60 holds its Top Trumps in the safety department. A short swipe backwards on the big touchscreen from the home page takes you to the car’s systems, which you can turn on and off. These include automatic emergency braking as standard, lane-keep and blind-spot warning systems, the ever-handy cross-traffic alert and traffic-sign recognition. It also out-performed its rivals in crash test ratings for child-occupant protection, and for recognising cyclists with the emergency braking.

As we say, it’s worth investigating, if only to see what a “dynamic Volvo”, the first Volvo ever to be built in North America, too, actually feels like.

Stat attack: Volvo V60 T5 R-Design

Price from: £37,935

Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol

Transmission: 8-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive

Power/torque: 250PS @ 5,500rpm/330Nm (258lb ft) @ 4,800

0-62mph: 6.5sec

Top speed: will be 112mph…

Economy: 35.3mpg

Kerb weight: 1,658kg