MOTORING Pay and display
You get what you pay for with Volvo’s new V40 Cross Country – a fabulous car with a fearsome price tag that’s built as much for show as it is for the road WORDS NEIL LYNDON
Country. The torrents that were teeming down the lanes and the mud that was slimed thick on cambered corners were no bother at all to the T5 AWD (all-wheel drive) version. On its raised suspension and with its reinforced undersides, it danced around the bends where others were treading timorously, and charged surefootedly through the lagoons as happily as a labrador. In standard form, Volvo’s excellent fi ve-door
M
V40 is an upmarket alternative to VW’s Golf and Vauxhall’s Astra – or a downmarket alterna- tive to BMW’s 1 Series. Either way, it is a serious contender. Not only is the V40 the most stylish and original Volvo since The Saint’s P1800 of the 1960s (with an instrument display that delight- fully reinvents the whole concept), it is also a pleasure to drive. The car with the best dynamics in this class is Ford’s Focus, but even in its bog- standard version the V40 bears comparison. However, the Cross Country version of the
V40 stands altogether in a class of its own. In the category of ‘soft-roaders’ that are mainly intended for the school run and the shopping trip, there is nothing like it for performance; and, equally, nothing like it for price. With 0-60mph acceleration in six seconds
and a top speed of 146mph, the 250 bhp T5 Cross Country is almost as fast as some Porsches. And you could very nearly buy a Porsche, too, for the £40,425 which is the all-in price of the T5 Lux Nav AWD version I so much enjoyed.
Below: The top-of-the- range V40 T5 AWD has a top speed of 146mph – almost as fast as some Porsches.
onsoons had fl ooded the roads of Hampshire and Berkshire for the recent launch of the Volvo V40 Cross
And compared to the T5, Porsches will seem
almost as commonplace as the Ford Focus: Volvo reckons in 2013 it will sell only about 1,000 in total of all the different versions of the Cross Country, some with two-wheel drive, most with diesel engines. Of
the petrol-powered, four-
‘It dances round bends and charges through lagoons as happily as a labrador’
wheel-drive T5 version which is the best of the bunch, however, Volvo hopes to sell a mere 20 or 30 cars. You’re more likely to see a new Rolls- Royce on the road. In all these respects, the V40 T5 AWD is a
peculiarly tricky proposition to come to terms with. Why, for instance, is this, the only four- wheel-drive car in the Cross Country range, fi tted with a petrol engine rather than the diesel which would seem to suit it more naturally? Why has Volvo given this range the Cross Country name rather than the XC designation which it applies to estate cars with such admirable mud- plugging abilities as the XC70? The answer, said a Volvo man, is that ‘the V40 Cross Country is not so rugged’. What this means is that the V40 Cross
Country is, for the most part, a cosmetic crea- tion designed to put on a show on Byres Road or George Street. Its sill protectors and kick-plates function like the combination of Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies to suggest that their owner has just dashed in from the country to deliver a brace of fi ne birds to the in-laws. Like many a fancy pretence, this one can
come at a fearful price. For instance, the two-litre diesel D4 Cross Country SE Lux with two-wheel- drive (which I also tested) would cost £34,295 with all its extras. That’s at least £5,000 more than a standard, non-Cross Country version of the V40 equipped to the same specifi cation. Even at its scorching price, the four-wheel- drive T5 undoubtedly deserves
respect;
but those two-wheel-drive versions of the V40 Cross Country remind me of the RX4 version of the pudding-shaped Scenic MPV which Renault dressed up with galoshes and a waxed jacket 2000 to look as
in if the
Highlands were its natural habitat. That also faced an uphill struggle to win over the doubters.
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