But I’m tempted to say that anyway, because the flagship V60 T6 R-Design creates an especially large contrast between that old perception of Volvo (which does still rear its ugly head occasionally) and the reality of the marque’s products, circa-2012.
The V60 T6 boasts a 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine with a turbocharger and four-wheel drive. It looks sexy and is great to drive.
But New Zealand Volvo importer Motorcorp Distributors Limited (MDL) has chosen to add a slightly outrageous edge to the V60 T6 adding a Polestar performance kit as standard kit.
Polestar? It’s Volvo’s motorsport/tuning partner, which offers a software upgrade for the T6 that injects an extra 18kW/40Nm into the engine: totals 242kW/480Nm, with 0-100km/h of 5.9 seconds. It all sounds pretty serious.
That’s in addition to the R-Design package, which brings styling, suspension and alloy-wheel enhancements. A price of $93,990 is also pretty serious, but even at that figure the V60 T6 R-Design is still a lot of car for the money.
The engine has a slightly raw aural flavor which is very appealing. The V60 is not a car known for its nimble chassis character, but with all that power and the traction of all-wheel drive you can truly conquer Kiwi backroads with the correct ‘slow in, fast out’ driving style.
The V60’s interior is magnificent: much better than the (much more expensive) equivalents from BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Audi is still superior for quality of materials, but not for styling, ergonomic good sense and sheer character.
The V60 cabin is a genuinely nice place to be and definitely one you’d choose for the long haul: everything falls to hand beautifully and the seats are superb.
Has the boring stuff been forgotten? Absolutely not. Volvo has never turned away from its emphasis on cutting-edge safety, although of that equipment is now optional on lesser models. Not in the T6: you get adaptive cruise control with collision warning, pedestrian detection, auto-brake and queue assist. All V60s have the City Safety system, which will automatically brake to stop you hitting the car in front at up to 15km/h.
Not boring. But despite the outrageous performance, not straying too far form what you might expect of a Volvo station wagon either.
