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THE VOLVO V-70XC Reviewed by Colin Hefferon  Volvo's answer to mud and slush Volvo Car Corporation picked the perfect place to introduce the new V-70XC Cross Country to the media -- the Equinox Hotel in Manchester, Vermont. The Equinox is a lovely, very pricey, country inn-type of hotel that dates back to 1769, prior to the American Revolutionary War. The Green Mountain Boys themselves reportedly began plotting their mischief against the British in the original hotel on that site. The Equinox is very old money: certainly not the type of place in which the Vegas crowd would feel they'd like to stay more than one night. Nor is the V-70XC a vehicle likely to attract the kind of folks who find Las Vegas their kind of town. No, the V-70XC is very understated in every respect, yet comfortable and exceedingly capable. Class rather than flash. The V-70XC will go about its business all day as a normal family-type vehicle and perform that function without fuss. It really comes into its own, however, should a few miles of very bad road come up. To demonstrate the V-70XC's all-round competence, Volvo arranged for auto journalists from across Canada and the US to drive it on a variety of roads ranging from expressways to abandoned logging trails. Taking to the roads and trails The day was an enthusiast's dream. It began at the hotel with a breakfast pep talk by Ann Bancroft (no, not Mrs. Robinson). Ms. Bancroft is planning an overland trip on foot to the South Pole - her second, incidentally - but this time, she'll be accompanied by only one other person, a Norwegian woman. The first trip was an astonishing demonstration of courage and endurance; the second promises to be even more so. (Volvo is one of the expedition's principal corporate sponsors.) After Ms. Bancroft set a proper tone for us media wimps, we repaired two-to-a-vehicle to the fifteen or so immaculately-prepared, sparkling clean V-70XCs lined behind the hotel. There were route books in each of the vehicles. For the direction-challenged among us, the cars were also equipped with a GPS-based navigation system, the five-inch-square screens for which popped out of the dash just to the right of the driver's line of vision. In a HAL-like monotone, the device in our vehicle demanded we take the most direct route, usually the nearest expressway. "Turn right in 500 yards," it intoned. "Turn right in 200 yards, turn right in 50 yards, turn right, turn right, TURN! RIGHT! NOW!" 200 miles of stunning scenery No deviations were allowed. It almost drove us nuts until we figured out how to shut it off. That's a $2500 option I'd probably take a pass on. Anyway, after a drive of about 200 miles through a variety of stunning rural Vermont scenery we were all to join up again about four hours later for lunch at the Sandanona Lodge. This is where Orvis, the ultra high-end fishing and hunting gear retailer maintains an instruction camp. To give us a taste of how the targeted V-70XC buyer might spend his leisure time, Volvo arranged for Orvis instructors to help us brush up on our fly-casting and trap shooting. Surprisingly good fun even for the terminally-citified (myself included) among us. On the way to Sandanona and back, we had an opportunity to test the capabilities of the V-70XC on a variety of different roads. Leaving there, my driving partner and I found ourselves leading a pack of five V-70XCs. (In those circumstances one's atavistic competitiveness rises to the fore.) At speed on the tight twisties, we found the V-70XC to be much more manageable than we would have expected from a vehicle with the ground clearance of a Jeep Wrangler (209mm). In fact, it felt very car-like. 
But from the high seating position, it feels more like you're in a mini-van or even an SUV than a normal sedan.High seating position in the V-70XC The V-70XC is fast and surprisingly agile for a heavy vehicle. At no time did any of us feel we were testing the performance limits of the V-70XC even though we were obviously pushing very hard. We covered the 200-odd miles from the Orvis camp to our hotel in Manchester in three and a quarter hours. I don't think more than fifty of those miles were freeway. The vehicle my partner and I drove got 27 mpg (US gallon) during this portion of the drive which, to my mind, is nothing short of remarkable. But here's the best part: While we were blowing greenhouse gasses out the back end of the V-70XC, thanks to Volvo's ingenious "prem-air" system, we were cleaning up ground level ozone (one of the principal causes of urban smog) at its front end. A thinking man's radiator A couple of years ago, Volvo engineers developed a remarkable substance that they now apply on the radiators of all of their models. This ingenious coating actually strips the ozone out of the air as the air passes over the rad coils. The effect is a net gain in air quality as the Volvo passes through. This is another example both of Volvo's corporate sense of responsibility and of its creative, solution-oriented approach to environmental problems. Upon learning of this technology, the thinking person has to wonder why the various government agencies charged with protecting air quality don't turn their collective brains to the on-position and make this technology mandatory for all vehicles sold in North America. It's relatively cheap and very effective; it would also help level the playing field so that Volvo is not being financially penalized in any way for doing something that benefits all of us. Volvo calls the V-70XC an "estate". An estate is what Europeans call a station wagon. BMW has one; so do Audi and Mercedes Benz. No, they're nothing like the station wagons in which your mom used to drive you to school: For one thing, they're a heck of a lot better handling; in fact, these new higher-end European estates handle as well in most circumstances as the sedans from which they are derived. They're also not mommy-wagons in the way that, say, the Taurus wagon or the Camry wagon are. With their estates, Volvo and the German Big Three want to convey an image of country rather than suburban; horses and dogs rather than kids and dogs; Polo rather than Armani. Except for the BMW 5-series estates, all are promoted as on-road vehicles with the flexibility to get you out of a jam when road conditions deteriorate. Purposeful, aggressive design The V-70XC Cross Country replaces the previous V-70 Cross Country. The two vehicles look about as much alike as Mark MacGwire and his twin brother. You can see the facial resemblance but below the jaw-line they're about as different as a sack of nails and a sack of flour. The new V-70XC is, in other words, one purposeful, aggressive-looking piece of machinery. I laughed when Jim Henry -- the professional off-road instructor Volvo had brought to Manchester to demonstrate the capabilities of the V-70XC -- told me that people really can use a drive-train as sophisticated and rugged as the V-70XC's. Sure, I said, if they lived in the Tatra Mountains of Central Europe or maybe at Hundred Mile House, British Columbia. I know you couldn't use it on a normal northeastern US expressway commute during a snowstorm because the road ahead of you would be clogged with jack-knifed semis and '81 Oldsmobiles spinning bald tires long before the V-70XC's viscous coupling could detect slippage at the front axle and cut in to move more torque to the rear wheels. But once again I found out I was wrong. Volvo expects the typical buyer of an V-70XC to be an affluent urbanite who also has a country home. Presumably, he or she will be affluent enough (and have a clean enough desk) to get clear of the city on the way to that country home before the typical Friday rush hour snow storm paralyzes all traffic going in and out of the city. Logging roads become a challenge Jim Henry demonstrated the off-road (well, severely broken road) capabilities of the V-70XC to our group on a former logging road on Equinox Mountain just outside Manchester. While we weren't doing true off-roading, which would call for winches and oversized tires with a big tread, the trail was challenging enough that I certainly wouldn't consider taking a vehicle as expensively finished as the V-70XC into that kind of topography. If it were my own car, that is. Needless to say, I had to eat humble quiche and admit to Jim that I was very impressed. Never once did I feel the V-70XC was in over its head on that steep and very rugged former logging trail. 
Once or twice I felt I may have been getting in over my head but the V-70XC more than held its own.Grabbing grip on a snowy trail Price-wise, the V-70XC will slip in under targeted competition like the Mercedes-Benz ML-320 and the BMW X-5. But dollar for dollar, the V-70XC may be a better deal than either of those two extremely attractive vehicles. Why? Because the V-70XC begins life as a car; it uses the platform from the Volvo's luxury S80 sedan and then the extra ruggedness is added on. This is similar to the approach taken with the BMW but the X-5 costs half again as much as the Volvo. While the ML-320 is closer to the V-70XC in price, it begins life as a truck and ride refinement is later added on, which yields a number of compromises in the noise, vibration and harshness category. Because in the consciousness of the car buying public Volvo means safety, all of Volvo's latest safety features have been built into the V-70XC, including dual air bags, side impact airbags and airbags to protect the heads of the driver and the passengers. In addition, features like anti-lock brakes and automatic stability control are also standard. If you're going to be involved in a serious accident, you stand a much better chance of walking away from it in a new Volvo than in virtually any other passenger vehicle on the market today. And, of course, like all new Volvos, the V-70XC is 85% recyclable and just about as environmentally-correct as it's possible to make an almost two-ton, all-wheel-drive passenger car today. "So what?" you say. Well, doing right by the environment will become very important to all new car buyers in the next couple of years as state and national governments, in response to mounting public pressure, assume a more pro-active stance towards urban air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and recycle-ability. Not a car for urban poseurs To sum up: While the Volvo V-70XC competes in the marketplace with the likes of the ML-320, the Audi A6 Quattro estate, and the BMW 5-series estates, it specifically targets the buyer who may not want to be burdened with the baggage that these other very capable machines carry with them. Perhaps it's unfair to say this but the German "Big Three" seem to attract more than their share of poseurs - people whose idea of all-terrain motoring is running a wheel up on the sidewalk in front of the local Starbucks. Not to put too fine a point on this but urban poseurs are unlikely to choose the V-70XC. You might consider it, though. Photos © Volvo Vancouver-based Colin Hefferon regularly tests and reviews new vehicles. Though an automotive enthusiast by nature, Colin takes the perspective of the average car owner. Which, after all, is most of us! Colin Hefferon is the road test editor for About Cars where more of his car reviews may be found. |
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