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By
EWAN KENNEDY
31 March 2008
Today's station wagon market is in a state of upheaval. Once
upon a time Australians were the world’s biggest consumers of
wagons, but the segment has been in a state of severe decline for
several years. Chiefly because buyers have switched to 4WDs and
SUVs.
By doing so owners gain the ability to go exploring interesting
off-road areas, but lose out on on-road behaviour due to SUV's
higher centre of gravity, and increased fuel costs, due to
additional weight and poorer aerodynamics, isn’t doing the
family’s budget a lot of good.
Volvo was once the king of the luxury station wagon market in
Australia but sales of its conventional wagons have declined
dramatically. Fortunately for the company’s bottom line it has
not one, but two, entrants in the SUV field. Both the soft-roader
XC70 and harder-edged XC90 have been racking up good retail
numbers.
Now the Swedish marque is offering yet another wagon, a
low-rider version of the recently launched XC70, called the V70.
Volvo's V70 has been on sale in two previous generations, but this
time around Volvo Australia has opted to import the V70 only in
its topline sporting format, rather than in a full range of
variants.
Which means the use of a 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six
with a powerful 210 kilowatts and 400 Nm, the latter coming in all
the way from 1500 to 4800 revs. Thus top torque will be there
virtually all the time in normal driving.
Transmission is by a sporting six-speed automatic with
Geartronic semi-manual selection for specific occasions. Drive is
to all four wheels because trying to get all those Newton metres
to the road through only two wheels would have been all but
impossible.
The result is a big station wagon that can accelerate from a
standstill to 100 km/h in only 7.2 seconds. More practically it
can spend a minimum of time on the wrong side of the road when
overtaking is necessary.
Volvo has long made its name for practicality and the V70,
which is virtually identical in its body to the XC70, is spacious
and sensible. Though it looks sleek and sporting, the rear end is
close to being vertical and the body sides are wide, and welcome
bulky loads. This really is a station wagon in the old-fashioned
manner and plenty of people will appreciate it for that.
The folding rear seat is split 40/20/60 per cent, and the front
passenger seatback can be folded flat to further improve
versatility. The rear seat contains the latest Volvo design of
inbuilt booster seats. This pair of seats can now be set at two
different levels to suit children of various sizes and weights.
Talk to your local Volvo dealer for full details on these
excellent children’s booster seats. Note that there's no option
of a third-row seat as once provided in Volvo wagons. Volvo says
it now deals with that market segment by providing the seven-seat
XC90 SUV.
As the new Volvo V70 wagon is a topline model there's a long
list of luxury features; including leather seats that can be
(optionally) heated or cooled, timber highlights on the dash,
climate-controlled air conditioning that has special air-cleaning
functions, an audio system that can accept various MP3 players and
which contains an iPod jack, and adaptable cruise control.
Satellite navigation, a rear view reversing camera and built-in
rear seat video screens are extra-cost options.
It goes without saying that safety is high in the list of
priorities. The latest V70 has six airbags, including extra-long
curtain units; a strong passenger cell, anti-whiplash head
restraints amongst numerous other items aimed at active and
passive protection of occupants. Not to forget protection of
pedestrians and cyclists who may make unfortunate contact with the
front of the car.
There's even a power operated tailgate with inbuilt safety
lockouts to protect stray fingers, or even a stray head, from
getting the chop.
Our initial test drive of this new $67,950 Volvo V70 estate
left us most impressed. There's plenty of performance from the
turbo engine, the automatic complements this nicely and the car is
extremely easy to drive. But the real revelation is the way the
V70 handles, it hugs the road beautifully and is controllable even
at extreme driving pressures. Yet it does all this with high
comfort levels that belie the sporting nature of this complex
machine.
Volvo's new luxury-sport wagon is a quiet, comfortable cruiser
that seems certain to pick up quite a few customers. We wouldn’t
be surprised if it enticed quite a few people away from
increasingly impractical large SUVs.
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Marque Publishing Company
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