Volvo Is Still In The Wagon Business: V60 Spied

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After years and years of assuring us that they would never enter into the SUV segment (mostly around the time when most SUV’s Ford Explorers were flipping over right and left) for safety reasons, we now have two SUV’s offered from the Swedish brand. And what SUV’s they are too. The XC90 looks great and the most critical, brutal automotive journalist in the world, Jeremy Clarkson, is even quite fond of it. Of the XC90 he said, “It is by far the best of all the school-run-mobiles because there really is room for seven people, 14 legs and two dogs in the boot as well. No other car maker — and this is strange — has managed to pull off a similar trick without ending up with a bus…we should all have one immediately”.

Praise doesn’t get much higher than that. In fact, Jeremy has practiced what he preached and is currently on his third XC90.

Then you have the smaller XC60, which we can personally atest too, is at the top end of the segment. It can easily go head to head with BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz’s offerings.

So, why even bother with wagons when they can do SUV’s so well?

Well, the fact of the matter is, wagons are what Volvo does well too. It is one of the very few automakers that has stuck with wagons throughout the whole SUV craze, and one of the few that offers multiple sizes, engine variations and trim levels.  Now that everyone has abandoned the proverbial wagon ship, Volvo almost has the segment all to itself, which is very smart in a way.

So this is why we are seeing the V60. It is supposed to be a wagon version of the new 2011 S60. So where does that leave the V70, XC70 and V50? Well, the V70 and XC70 are now sharing the S80’s platform, so they are expected to grow in size. The V50 is expected to keep the compact segment filled, so this new V60 will help out in the mid-size category.

By the looks of the pictures, it will fit in just fine on Canadian soil.

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