Silky drive and striking presence

Renowned for its driver aids and outstanding safety features, the latest Volvo lifts the crossbar by several notches with satnav, City Safety, which has automatic braking and pedestrian and cyclist detection, and can keep the car in its lane and away from the side of the road if the driver’s attention is distracted and it will even steer the car as long as the driver maintains a light grip on the steering wheel.

Volvo plans to eventually have 12 petrol and diesel variants on the local market, but initially only the T6 petrol model and the D5 diesel all-wheel drive models which I piloted during the recent Media introduction in the Western Cape will be on sale.

Spacious and comfortable

My first taste at wheel of an S90 was in a T6 AWD Inscription Geartronic decked out in strikingly handsome Twilight Bronze metallic paintwork and living quarters furnished in creamy soft leather upholstery.

Powered by 2.0-litre in-line 4-cylinder twin charged petrol engine linked to an eight-speed auto box, this spacious and comfortable luxury sedan is certainly no slouch off the mark. With 234kW and 400Nm on call, it sprints from zero to 100km/h in 5.9 seconds and on to an electronically halted top speed of 250km/h.

With its Drive Mode selector clicked into Sport Mode, the S90 not only surprises with its keenness out of the starting stalls but also by the way it clings to the tar with the dignity of a smaller sporty sedan. Purring along at cruising speeds in this svelte Swede is like bathing in Irish Coffee.

A detailed description of this car’s standard features will need a few pages of its own but sample ticks includes a 9-inch Sensus Connext touchscreen infotainment system, Adaptive Cruise Control, rear parking sensors, Drive Mode Selector, Active Bending LED headlights with Active Beam, two-zone automatic climate control, 19-inch alloy wheels, navigation and lots more.

The list of standard safety features is equally long and includes ABS, EBD, BAS and HAS, six airbags, autobrake at intersections for oncoming traffic, warning and driver alert control and road sign information.

Optional extras

Our test car was also well-stocked with numerous optional extras which bumped the car’s standard price up from R871,900 to R1,028,125.

From the petrol version I hopped into the D5 Inscription Geartronic version powered by a two-litre in-line 4-cylinder twin-turbo diesel engine that pushes out 173kW and a thumping 480Nm, linked to an 8-speed automatic transmission. It has as claimed sprint time of 7.0 sec from 0-100km/h and a top speed of 240km/h and Volvo says it will sip as little as 4.8-litres per 100km in the combined cycle.

The D5 is identically endowed in the safety and standard features departments and optional features fitted on our test car pushed the standard price of R821,200 up to R949,575. Both models are backed by a five-year/100 000km warranty and a five-year/100,000km full maintenance plan.

Buyers have many ways of personalising their cars and have the choice of three specification levels plus 13 body colours and 12 living quarters’ themes.

In the S90, the Swedish brand has the Full Monty of head-turning good looks, imposing presence, rich array of standard and optional features plus the comfort, ride quality and handling to go eyeball to eyeball with dominant players such as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Lexus – and even beat them in the process.