Jonathan Gitlin
The renaissance at Volvo is in full swing. Flush with funds and a supportive owner, its products over the past few years have proven you don’t need to look to Germany to see a luxury car maker at the top of its game. This corner of the market is now all about the swanky SUV, and the 2018 XC60—tested here in its 400hp T8 plug-in hybrid version—makes a strong case that Sweden is leading the pack.
The new era started when Ford sold Volvo in 2010. Freed from American corporate micromanagement, new owner Geely took a hands-off approach, giving Volvo the resources it needed to develop all-new engines and vehicle architectures. It came up with what it calls the Scalable Product Architecture, a highly flexible starting base for all of its medium and large vehicles. The first SPA vehicles were all big ones: the XC90, a three-row SUV that arrived in 2014; then more recently the S90 sedan and V90 station wagons. All are fine vehicles, but with the XC60, the stakes are higher—it’s far and away the company’s best-selling model.
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