Volvo S60 is ‘most sporty and dynamic car to date’ but speed cap makes it slower than a Hyundai i20

ACCORDING to Volvo, the S60 is its “most sporty and dynamic car to date”.

That may be so.

But unless you buy one in the next eight months, you will be spending £38,000 on a car which is technically slower than a Hyundai i20.

Doesn’t sound quite so sporty now, does it?

I’m being facetious but what I’m referring to is Volvo’s decision to cap the top speed on all its cars to 112mph from 2020.

Volvo says it is in the name of safety, and I get it, but I’m a bit uneasy about the Nanny State attitude of it all.

I have no interest in driving at 112mph on British roads but manufacturers making decisions on our behalf?

It’s a dangerous precedent. And the Government is threatening to do something similar from 2022.

That said, I admire Volvo’s mission to ensure nobody dies or is badly injured in one of its cars, and I admire even more that it can make cars as engaging as the new S60 at the same time.

Aimed at battling behemoths like the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4, Volvo is playing another bold card with the S60 by making it petrol-only.

Risky in the UK, where frugal-thinking firms still recognise diesel is the best juice for high-milers.

But Volvo says there is no demand from China and the US for diesels — its two biggest markets — so Europe will just have to suck it up and make do with petrol and electrified engines.

The hybrids are yet to arrive though, so at launch the S60 comes in a single flavour — the 2-litre petrol T5 engine, in R-Design trim, with an eight-speed auto.

The engine is lively — good for 0-62mph in 6.5 seconds — and feels eager to please.

It lacks any real soundtrack, which is probably deliberate on Volvo’s part, because the cabin is blissfully quiet, even at high speeds.

Some might want to hear more of a bark from the exhaust, but that’s not what you buy a Volvo for.

The S60 is essentially a boot-less version of the brilliant V60 estate and therefore a lot lighter on its feet.

Steering feel is weighty and satisfying — there’s a constant conversation between the driver and the road, unlike many of its German counterparts, which feel over-engineered and sanitised.

The automatic gearbox is definitely not as smooth as the dual-clutch system used by Audi and can sometimes be found lingering on the wrong cog, especially when asking for punch out of a corner.

You have to be driving it hard to expose this flaw though, and Volvo has added steering wheel-mounted paddles as standard, which negate the problem immediately, so long as you’re not feeling lazy.

As a taster of the range, the T5 is flavoursome, but the twin-engine hybrid T8 version coming later this year sounds delicious. It will pack nearly 400bhp and is expected to cost around £50,000.

Worth waiting for? Probably.

But unless you’re planning a trip to the autobahn next year, you’ll still be beaten at the top end by your nan’s Hyundai i20.

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