Sunday Drive: Volvo S60 T5 R-Design
Sunday, 3 May 2020
**VOLVO S60 T5 R-Design
Base price:** $82,900
Powertrain and economy: 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder, 192kW/400Nm, 8-speed automatic, AWD, combined economy 7.3L/100km, CO2 168g/km (source: RightCar).
Vital statistics: 4761mm long, 2040mm wide, 1431mm high, 2872mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 390 litres, 19-inch alloy wheels.
We like: Looks sensational, attractive and comfortable minimalist interior, packed with tech.
We don't like: Tiny boot, still a bit too expensive.
This road test was completed before the current coronavirus lockdown restrictions came into effect.
Recently I have driven two exceptional examples of Volvo vehicles that pack the company's T8 'twin engine' powertrain that combines a 2.0-litre turbo and supercharged petrol engine with an electric motor to form a PHEV system that packs some fairly startling performance results.
The Volvo V60 T8 and XC60 T8 Polestar Engineered are truly superb things, packing extreme frugality, serious performance and impressive quality into a sexy wagon body (the V60) or a handsome SUV with thoroughly pointless, but utterly brilliant manually adjustable suspension (the XC60).
Both also represent impressive value for money, because even though the V60 T8 lands at $114,900 and the Polestar tweaked XC60 is $129,900, literally nothing the competition offers for the same price can touch either of them in terms of sheer outright performance.
**READ MORE:
* Road test review: Volvo XC60 T8 Polestar Engineered
* Road test review: Volvo V60 T8 R-Design
* Why the Volvo XC60 is our Top Premium SUV of 2018**
But how does everything come together when you drop the supercharger, the hybrid system and the wagon body for the S60 T5 sedan? Well, for a start you also drop a hefty $32,000, because the S60 lands at $82,900 (both the S60 and V60 are priced the same for their respective T5 and T8 variants).
While shorn of the T8 PHEV power and frugality, the T5 isn't exactly left wanting, with the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol pumping out 192kW of power and 400Nm of torque, which is nothing to be sneezed at, and it proves to be a comfortably powerful cruiser on local roads, albeit lacking the T8's visceral punch.
Is that visceral punch worth the extra $32,000 though? People like myself will immediately say yes - the sheer bang for your buck the T8 possesses make it a no-brainer - but if the performance doesn't matter, then the T5 offers a strong case for itself as a capable and extremely competent mid-size luxury car, packing - as it does - all of the higher-priced car's luxury and quality.
Superbly comfortable seats and Volvo's uniquely Scandinavian sense of minimalism with its approach to interior design mean the S60's interior is a special place, while the level of technology is impressive as well.
Volvo's Pilot Assist adaptive cruise control is still one of the better ones out there and it comes as standard on the S60. Not something you used to be able to say about a car from Volvo, which had a nasty habit of making stuff that comes as standard on other cars optional.
And let's just talk about the outside for a bit, shall we? Because by any standard the S60 is a good-looking car. Sure, the V60 wagon is cooler, but the S60 still has that sleek, restrained handsomeness that the larger S90 and V90 first introduced, and it works remarkably well on the smaller car.
Volvos have been good looking cars for a while now, but the S60 takes things to a new, yet confidently restrained level again. Even if red isn't the best colour for it…
The S60 presents itself as well on the road as it does visually, with an agile chassis that is admittedly distinctly oriented towards comfort over overt sportiness, resulting in a comfortable, composed ride that is deeply impressive most of the time, only becoming slightly brittle and unsettled over the worst surfaces.
It is more comfort-oriented than its obvious (read: German) competition, like the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4, but it certainly doesn't suffer in comparison to them, because it largely measures up, apart from a bit of badge snob appeal, perhaps.
But it is that badge snob appeal that hurts the S60 the most and even though it is slightly cheaper than the obvious competition, it is still an expensive car that is most definitely not a BMW, Mercedes-Benz or an Audi. But then there is something that all European mid-size sedans and wagons have been confronted with recently - the Peugeot 508.
While the S60 stacks up well against the likes of the similarly-powered 190kW/400Nm BMW 330i (or the 218kW/420Nm 330e PHEV), offering similar levels of standard equipment for $7,000 less than the 330i's $89,990 asking price, the Peugeot eviscerates them both in a relatively brutal fashion by offering equivalent levels of technology and equipment, slightly less power (169kW/300Nm) but actually higher levels of quality and style for $25,000 less.
While the Germans can get past the massive price difference to a degree thanks to that badge-appeal and German engineering reputation (deserved or not, it is still a strong selling point), the Volvo struggles a bit more to overcome the hefty price gap between it and the Peugeot.
And that's not even thinking about the undeniable appeal of a Tesla Model 3 that sits right in the same price range…