The big and chunky first-gen XC90 which landed in 2002 was good and set a new benchmark for subtly posh SUVs at the time – but the model that replaced it 15 years later was much better. Not least because it was sat on Volvo’s spanking new Scaleable Product Architecture platform which made it bigger and more rigid, yet lighter and more refined at the same time.
Like its predecessor, and what’s attracted buyers to Volvo since the Sixties, it was festooned with hi-tech safety features. Indeed, the Swedish firm had anticipated just about every road hazard imaginable when putting it together, including automatic braking if you were about to cut in front of a car while turning and even semiautonomous driving in traffic.
Initially, engines included the Drive-E 2.0-litre units fuelled by diesel (D5) or petrol (T6 and T8) using a heady mix of turbocharging, hybridisation and supercharging to provide various power/ economy options. A PowerPulse diesel engine was added to
