2017 Volvo S90 Preproduction First Drive

Here’s what I can’t tell you: where we are. I can say we’re at a top-secret Volvo test facility way up north in Sweden. There’s a town in Finland called Rovaniemi that’s famous because it’s where Santa Claus hails from. We’re north of that, and well inside the Arctic Circle. The temperature is below freezing, diagonal snow is falling, and at a little past 2 p.m. the sun is already getting ready to set. I’m behind the wheel of semi-camouflaged, early build Volvo S90, Volvo’s new midsize luxury sedan. I’m barreling down the front straight of an ice- and snow-covered test track, the digital speedo showing 87 miles per hour. I begin semi-sawing the steering wheel randomly back and forth, trying to get the black sedan out of control. Hey, I didn’t journey from one end of the world to the other just to try the reindeer stew. (For those wondering, it was a tasty lunch.)

We named the Volvo XC90 our SUV of the Year for 2016. I personally handed North American CEO Lex Kerssemakers the trophy. The XC90 is a vehicle we institutionally know well and think very highly of. It’s not going to shock very many of you then to learn that I also think very highly of Volvo’s all-new sedan. After all, the S90 shares 70 percent of its parts with the big SUV. Some of those parts include the fixed section of Volvo’s trick SPA (scalable product architecture) chassis, specifically the area between the front wheel centers and the firewall, where 60 percent of the engineering costs of a vehicle live. The 2.0-liter supercharged and turbocharged inline-four, the eight-speed automatic transmission, and the front seats all split time between the two vehicles. You’ll see even more of this parts sharing when the new S60 shows up in a couple of years.

So what’s new? The sexy new sheetmetal, for starters. I’ve been a big fan of Volvo’s head of global design, Thomas Ingenlath, since the 2014 Geneva Motor Show, when the brand debuted not only the lovely XC90, but also showed the stunning Concept Estate, a milk chocolate-colored shooting brake that is still resonating with me. As it turns out, the Concept Estate was a preview of Volvo’s new sedan/wagon styling. Yes, friends, in case you’ve been living under a rock, in addition to the S90, Volvo is bringing back its big wagon, the V90. Though up here in Arctic Sweden, the engineers have been begging us to only talk to them about the S90. So be it. Because the S90’s hood is lower than the XC90’s, the front air springs the SUV uses were too tall to fit. Volvo instead went with double A-arms, just like a Mazda Miata. These are the type of things you’re able to fit under your hood when the very largest engine you’ll ever offer is a 2.0-liter I-4. Air springs remain in the rear, as does a composite transverse leaf spring. Just like a Corvette.

Miata? Corvette? Am I crazy? Or just completely jet-lagged? Without answering those last two, I can tell you that a full, back road, dry pavement evaluation is going to have to wait. While the S90 was on studded Nokian tires, there just wasn’t a ton of grip available, which is to be expected when you’re dozens of kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in February. I can tell you that the S90 felt solid, and quite planted on the frosty tarmac. Moreover, Volvo’s traction and stability control programming is mindbogglingly good. Remember up top I mentioned I was “trying to get the black sedan out of control” at more than 80 miles per hour? I was attempting that because Peter Mertens, Volvo’s senior vice president of research and design, was egging me on. Truly, he was basically daring me to stuff his prototype into a snow bank. Simply didn’t happen. Not only does the S90’s electronic nanny keep the car pointed more or less straight ahead, (again, in miserable conditions, at above 80 mph) but the interventions are mild. They’re not harsh or surprising. I think that not freaking the driver out with a big jolt from the brakes contributes to the safety of the situation as much as anything. Everything feels smooth and soft. Impressively well-done.

Same goes for the interior. The following is ripped straight from our SUV of the Year winner article about the XC90: “The judges’ sheets were filled with words such as ‘gorgeous,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘comfortable,’ ‘fresh,’ and ‘different without being polarizing.’ Safe to say we loved it.” Each and every one of those descriptors is true of the S90, though we might need a couple more as Volvo has cranked the sedan’s interior up a notch. Blingier speaker grilles, sharper-looking air vents, tonier wood – small changes, sure, but the overall effect is that the S90’s cabin is slightly more upscale than the XC90’s. An odd situation at first glance, since Volvo is pitching the big SUV as its flagship. However, the Swedish brand will soon be selling the crystal champagne-fluted four-seat XC90 Excellence edition, which ups the luxury game even higher. So, problem (that’s not really a problem) solved.

The same 2.0-liter, super- and turbocharged inline-four good for 316 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque found in the XC90 T6 also powers the S90 T6. In the S90 T8 you’ll find the “Twin Engine” hybrid setup. Its 2.0-liter powers the front wheels while a battery-powered traction motor motivates the rears. Total system output is 400 hp and 472 lb-ft of torque. There will also be a T5 model, featuring a non-supercharged version of the turbo I-4 that will produce 254 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. The T5 version can be had in either FWD or a Haldex AWD version. The T6 is Haldex only. Note: Just like in the PHEV XC90, there is no mechanical linkage between the T8’s front gasoline-powered wheels and its electrically motivated rears.

 

Safety has long been synonymous with this Swedish brand, and the S90 keeps that relationship going strong. Volvo claims that the new, big sedan has the “most advanced safety package in the segment.” Starting with the passive stuff, one-third of the S90’s body-in-white is constructed of hot-formed, ultra-high-strength steel. Volvo says the S90 has the highest percentage of ultra-high-strength steel found on any production vehicle. Another 20 percent of the structure is comprised of very high-strength steel. Just to give you a little primer on various steel strengths, the material is classified as mild, high, very high, extra-high, and ultra-high strength. Still, steel is not aluminum. Volvo estimates that the S90 weighs 200 kilograms less than the XC90, which according to our measurements would place the four-door at just under 4,300 pounds. That’s not light. For comparison’s sake, a 2014 Mercedes-Benz E550 clocks in at 4,375 pounds, whereas a same year Cadillac CTS Vsport comes in at 3,938. Also, the Mercedes has a twin-turbo V-8 and the Caddy has a TT V-6. However, all things being equal, heavier vehicles do tend to perform better in crashes.

In terms of active safety, the S90 comes strapped. The impressive traction and stability control electronics I mentioned earlier are part of Volvo’s ongoing initiative to prevent accidental road departures. In addition to the spinal crush prevention seats (just like the XC90’s because they are the XC90’s), Volvo figures that the best way to prevent a spinal injury is to keep the vehicle on the road. New on the S90 is Intersection Braking, which is very similar to the Audi Q7’s Turn Assist. Basically, if you’re turning into oncoming traffic and are gonna get T-boned, the car automatically brakes itself to prevent the accident. There’s also large animal detection built into Volvo’s excellent City Safety suite of assistance aids, which they cutely demonstrated with a slide of the car seeing a moose. The new gen-II Pilot Assist allows semi-autonomous driving up to 80 mph. All of the above helps feed Volvo’s mantra that no one will die in a Volvo come the year 2020.

No word on pricing yet, but should you decide to purchase an S90 when the car goes on sale late this summer, you’ll find yourself behind the wheel of a sexy, elegantly appointed, smartly safe and spacious sedan. What more could you want? Well, besides a Polestar-tweaked V90?

 

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