Volvo XC60 review

The XC60 doesn’t immediately communicate SUV cues from the outside: it could easily be a tall looking estate car, but once you’re behind the wheel you sit reassuringly high in an extraordinarily supportive seat.

The back seat isn't too second class, thanks to a well-shaped bench and good space for head and knees. You get two Isofix points in the rear, and the option of a trick integrated child’s seat that folds up out of the seat base. Plenty of glass and good views out too, particularly if you've specced the optional panoramic roof. 

Matte wood and soft, light colours set a Scandinavian atmosphere and position Volvos as different from the German crowd. It’s full of nicely chosen and well stitched together materials: cocooning, as calm as a morning's fishing in some Nordic pine forest. But everyone buys black leather and brushed aluminium, same as they do with BMWs and Audis. So those are available too.

What's the tech like?

Directly in front of the driver sits an easy-to-read 12.3in digital instrument display, with speedo permanently displayed on the left and charge/rev counter permanently displayed on the right. The centre can be customised to show the satnav and suchlike. 

Meanwhile the dash is centred around a nine-inch upright touchscreen. The screen itself is high in resolution, responds nicely, and carries a huge range of options and controls. The menus can get a little confusing though and there’s little in the way of any physical switchgear (big play/pause/volume knob aside). We’d have preferred more buttons for changing the temperature, fan speed etc.

All XC60s now have full Google integration, including navigation (with traffic updates), assistant (so you can talk to it), and access to the Play store, to download more apps. Apple CarPlay is also plumbed in, if you prefer, but the native system is impressive. 

Can I fit the kitchen sink in the boot?

It’s deep enough for the outdoorsy kit that features in the lush photography of any big SUV brochure and you can buy all manner of racks and boxes to stick on the outside of the car if you want to go full hashtag-lifestyle. You get an official 483 litres of space with the seats up (bigger than an Audi Q5, but smaller than a BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC) although the PHEV version loses 15 litres thanks to whatever hybrid trickery sits in there. 

You’ll barely notice the tiny difference mind – it’s only so small because the batteries have been neatly squirrelled away inside the transmission tunnel. Knock all the seats down and you’ll have 1,410 litres of space to play with, which again drops by 15 litres in the plug-in cars.