The ground breaking Volvo S60 luxury sedan will become one of the most important vehicles to be launched into New Zealand by the Swedish brand under its new Chinese parent Geely Group reports Robert Barry.

Internationally Volvo wants to target the premium sedan market with S60 and is aiming for conquest sales against Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The company is aiming for a total vehicle production of 800,000 units within the next two years thanks to a 900 million US capital injection from Geely.

That’s an optimistic view but one that Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby reckons the company will pull off as the world economy recovers.

Locally the sales strategy for the new Volvo S60 is to pull customers up from high end mainstream vehicles such as Subaru, Honda, Peugeot and Volkswagen which is entirely sensible given the brands stature and price points.

Certainly the prices of the new S60 D5 AWD (turbo diesel all wheel drive) priced at $71,990 and the S60 T6 AWD (turbo petrol all wheel drive) at $79,990 pitches the Swede competitively between these brands and the Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz small premium luxury sedans.

A front wheel drive S60 T5 will be added to the range in the first quarter of 2011 at $63,990.

Volvo Cars New Zealand general manager, Steve Kenchington says the S60 is a striking sports sedan that shows Volvo’s passion for cars yet it is very much a true Volvo.

“This is an extremely important new car for us,” he says. “With its standout style, on-road abilities, passenger comfort and the latest Volvo safety technology we feel it sets new standards in New Zealand’s premium mid-size segment.”

Stressing the significance of the all-new S60 locally Mr Kenchington said Volvo Cars New Zealand is targeting around 80 annual sales in its first full year.

“It will join the XC60 as our biggest-selling model and we see opportunities in the fleet and executive market for the ‘user chooser’ buyer.” 

Behind the style of the S60 sedan is a design that combines high technology with maximised efficiency - in terms of safety, mechanical function and total space utilisation.

Volvo says the S60 sedan becomes the most high-tech Volvo they have made so far. It includes world-leading dynamic safety technology, including extended functionality to its dynamic stability and traction control (DSTC) system to include advanced stability control (ASC) is complemented by two pioneering safety innovations: pedestrian detection with full auto brake, and Volvo’s city safety, which was first seen on the Volvo XC60. Through a camera and radar that scan the road ahead, the S60 is able to apply the brakes by itself if a pedestrian moves into the path of the car and the driver fails to respond to warnings.

The city safety is fitted as standard equipment and reduces, or entirely avoids, low speed impacts up to 30 km/h, while the optional driver alert control (DAC) will alert drivers who have become tired or distracted.

Adaptive cruise control with collision warning, auto brake and pedestrian detection is available as an option for $4,590.

The S60 also features an optional Blind spot information system (BLIS) which helps detect vehicles in the rear blind spots on both sides of the car, lane departure warning (which alerts drivers if the vehicle runs across the lane markers without the indicator being activated), Active Bi-Xenon lights that ‘see around corners’ and numerous secondary safety features including seat-mounted side airbags, improved inflatable curtains and Volvo’s patented whiplash protection system (WHIPS).

Corner traction control increases on-road agility by automatically braking the inner driven wheel as extra power is applied to the outer wheel. This ‘torque vectoring’ improves turn-in, thus reducing understeer.

Volvo says its optional FOUR-C active suspension has been modified and improved for the S60, while all-wheel drive is standard in T6 and D5 models.

Volvo says the premium interior of the S60 combines high quality materials with Swedish comfort and functionality, offering increased passenger room and luggage space.

Driving impressions

Standing beside a crash test dummy with camera in hand for this cover story was a little nerve racking at first. Would the City Safety system kick in just in the nick of time? Or would I be leaving the Volvo function with bruised shins?

Fortunately the technology does work superbly, although from the driver’s seat driving up to the inflatable dummy at 30kph you have to resist all temptation to hit the brakes before the S60 does it for you.  But the car will stop short as you can see from the photographs on these pages.

Sliding into the leather clad driver’s seat of the Copper Metallic S60 T6 you see here and on our cover of this issue instantly reminds me why I respect the Swedes so much. Nobody does a better and more comfortable car seat than Volvo, although a bit more side bolstering would be useful on the T6, particularly when the driver is pressing on. This is a car that begs to be driven dynamically and when apart from the much missed Volvo 850R sedan from the 1990s did you hear someone recently say that about a Volvo?

Fire up the engine of the T6 and you are met by a throaty six-cylinder burble that is just intoxicating and slipping the cars transmission into manual mode allows you to use engine braking as required for cornering and downhill control.

The web based viral advertising campaign of Jonny Reid thrashing this car around Hampton Downs while wearing a blindfold wasn’t just hamming up it for the camera, this car is truly that capable of hot footing it with the best small sporting sedans that Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi can provide.

We drove the S60 T6 down the wonderfully windy and hilly Highway 22 running from Tuakau to Huntly, and enjoyed every minute of the experience. The S60 T6 has excellent levels of grip combined with a comfortable ride that won’t rattle your fillings across our corrugated back country roads unlike some other European brands.

But was what more surprising was the level of performance and handling also offered by the turbocharged inline five cylinder diesel in the S60 D5 which we drove after the lunch break on launch day. This melodic engine develops its 420Nm of torque at 1500 rpm rather than the T6 which develops 440Nm at 2100 rpm, which gives the D5 driver a greater spread of power earlier on and allowed us to quickly catch up to a T6 being driven equally briskly by another journalist.  

If you have driven a Volvo recently then the interior and switchgear will be immediately familiar, everything is cleanly and crisply designed and the indicator and wiper wands are beautifully executed in the usual functional but intuitive Swedish style.

The “floating dash” has now been angled (a la BMW) towards the driver and the dashboard inserts and plastics do indeed have a premium feel on par with the German brands.

Will the new S60 conquer the Germans entirely? Possibly not, but people who normally put the upscale Subaru Legacy and Honda Accord-Euro models on their shopping list should check out this Swedish model.