Volvo UK has killed off *all* of its saloons and estates

This is nearly as big as Ford laying the Fiesta to rest: Volvo has confirmed that it is no longer selling saloons or estates in the UK, meaning as of this moment it’s exclusively an SUV brand. Wow.

Had it been coming? Back in June it removed the S90 and Cross Country versions of the V60 and V90 from its books, and now the S60 saloon and remaining V60 and V90 estates have suffered the same fate.

Volvo says its saloons and estates accounted for less than 10 per cent of sales in the UK, and that the XC40, XC60 and XC90 SUVs locked out the top three positions in their respective segments. In other words, the market has spoken.

“We continue to rapidly transform our product offer, which means not only moving towards full electrification, but also shifting to new platforms and technologies across all our cars,” said the company in a statement. “We will naturally need to evolve and consolidate our line-up as we prioritise fully electric cars and make this technological transition.

“As a result, we have removed further models from the UK line-up. These include the S60, V60 and V90. Demand for our existing SUV line-up continues to grow, while interest in our forthcoming fully electric EX30 and EX90 models is strong. Meanwhile, appetite for our saloon and estate models has fallen to very low levels in the UK, which has led to our decision to remove these models from sale in the UK.”

Some models are still available to buy from Volvo’s existing stock, and production of S and V cars continues for overseas markets. So if you’re absolutely desperate for a relaxing, boxy wagon - and the numbers suggest you’re not - we guess you could still import one in left-hand drive.

Will we ever see a humble Volvo estate or saloon in the UK again? Perhaps. When TG put the idea of an electric estate to CEO Jim Rowan last year, he replied: “Suffice to say that we play across all the spectrums and ranges, and we’ve customers who require different vehicles. And we will try and make sure that we can capture as much of that as we possibly can.

“But we will not become thin-sliced and have 40 different models. That is not our strategy. Our strategy will be tight, we’ll look after the demographics that we think make sense. And then the different formats - sedans, wagons, whatever - we’ll get to that when we get to that.”

Come on market forces, do the decent thing and be interested in cool stuff…