Do you like the cut of its jib, mate?
Swedish marque Volvo have finally fielded their compact executive saloon & estate contenders for the 2019 model-year, in the form of the S60 & V60. It’ll be arriving on local shores as either a Momentum, Inscription, or R-Design, with either a T5 petrol engine or a T8 TwinEngine plug-in hybrid.
The $54,990 commanded by the S60 T5 Momentum and the $56,990 demanded by the V60 T5 Momentum might seem like alot, but Volvo’s idea is that if you chuck everything and the kitchen sink at it, the prices make up for itself. So for the money, the two cars come as standard with 17-inch alloys, AEB, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane-keep assist, all-round parking sensors, electrochromic rear view mirrors, keyless entry & go, adaptive cruise control with steering assist, and an electric bootlid/hatch.
Spend an additional $6000 and you can walk into an Inscription car, which then adds niceties like 19-inch alloys, quad-zone climate control, a heads-up display, and a 360º camera system. You also get LED headlights, semi-autonomous reverse parking, heated front seats, power-extendable under-thigh support, and posher upholstery & cabin trim.
Spend another $4k on top of that and you end up in an R-Design model which not only looks more aggressive, but actually adds 5kW and 50Nm to the T5 model. For that you get a more aggressive exterior treatment, matte-black 19-inch alloys, R-Design seats, paddle-shifters, and an adaptive suspension system.
Power, as mentioned earlier, comes either from a T5 powertrain (2.0-litre turbo-petrol, 187kW/350Nm), or a T8 TwinEngine plug-in hybrid setup (311kW/680Nm). Both powertrains offer all-wheel drive, though only the PHEV can hit 100km/h in just 4.7-seconds. And only the PHEV can drive 45km on a full charge, because obviously.
| S60 Model | MSRP |
| S60 T5 Momentum | $54,990 |
| S60 T5 Inscription | $60,990 |
| S60 T5 R-Design | $64,990 |
| S60 T8 TwinEngine PHEV R-Design | $85,990 |
| V60 Model | MSRP |
| V60 T5 Momentum | $56,990 |
| V60 T5 Inscription | $62,990 |
| V60 T5 R-Design | $66,990 |
| V60 T8 TwinEngine PHEV R-Design | $87,990 |
The Volvo S60 will arrive in August to be a major annoyance to the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and BMW 3-Series, while the 3-Series Touring will be able to breathe easy until the V60’s arrival towards the end of the year.
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