Volvo XC60 review

The XC60 doesn’t immediately communicate SUV cues from the outside: it could easily be a tall-looking estate car, but once you’re behind the wheel you sit reassuringly high in an extraordinarily supportive seat.

The back seat isn't too second class, thanks to a well-shaped bench and good space for head and knees. You get two Isofix points in the rear, and the option of a trick integrated child’s seat that folds up out of the seat base. Plenty of glass and good views out too, particularly if you've specced the optional panoramic roof.

Matte wood and soft, light colours set a Scandinavian atmosphere and position Volvos as different from the German crowd. It’s full of nicely chosen and well-stitched-together materials: cocooning, as calm as a morning's fishing in some Nordic pine forest. But everyone buys black leather and brushed aluminium, same as they do with BMWs and Audis. So those are available too. All trim levels other than the entry-level Core come with a solid crystal gearshifter created by Swedish firm Orrefors. Unfortunately, it looks a little tacky compared to the rest of the interior.

What's the tech like?

Directly in front of the driver sits an easy-to-read 12.3in digital instrument display, with speedo permanently displayed on the left and charge/rev counter permanently displayed on the right. The centre can be customised to show the satnav and suchlike.

Meanwhile, post-2025 update the dash is dominated by an 11.2in portrait screen that strangely sits proud of the fascia and looks like a real afterthought. Thankfully it makes up for the strange design by being much quicker to respond than before. It uses the latest Snapdragon processor which makes operating it super slick, while the screen is high in resolution too. Lucky, because pretty much all of your controls are buried in there. There’s little in the way of any physical switchgear (big play/pause/volume knob aside). We’d have preferred more buttons for changing the temperature, fan speed etc.

All XC60s have full Google integration of course, including navigation (with traffic updates), assistant (so you can talk to it), and access to the Play store, to download more apps. Apple CarPlay is also plumbed in, if you prefer, but the native system is impressive.

Can I fit the kitchen sink in the boot?

It’s deep enough for the outdoorsy kit that features in the lush photography of any big SUV brochure and you can buy all manner of racks, boxes and tents to stick on the outside of the car if you want to go full hashtag-lifestyle. You get an official 483 litres of space with the seats up (bigger than an Audi Q5, but smaller than a BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC) although the PHEV version loses 15 litres thanks to whatever hybrid trickery sits in there.

You’ll barely notice the tiny difference mind – it’s only so small because the batteries have been neatly squirrelled away inside the transmission tunnel. Knock all the seats down and you’ll have 1,410 litres of space to play with, which again drops by 15 litres in the plug-in cars.