Nestled in Portugal’s heart is the town of Sintra, a place where the 18^th century architecture will enthral buffs of the Romantic era and the roads, sinuously twisted about the mountainous topography, are a petrolhead’s delight. And that muted sound is a hard charging trio of S60s carving up some Portuguese apexes.

IMAGE GALLERY

Yup, it’s on these challenging roads that Volvo has chosen to showcase its second generation S60, clearly confident of the latest platform’s uprated dynamics and performance. Ready for SA at the year’s end, says Volvo. For now, we’re unleashing the cars on four varied routes, covering rural, urban and heavily forested conditions, and strangely enough, we also have four derivatives on hand: all-wheel drive T6 petrol, D5 diesel, D3 diesel (not for our market) and a surprisingly spirited front-driven 2.0GTDi turbo petrol.

All the derivatives we sampled had automatic transmissions, though a six-speed manual is optional on the 2.0-litre turbo petrol. We spent most of our time however in the flagship, the six-cylinder turbocharged AWD T6 with 223kW and 440Nm on tap. Incidentally it’s the model which suffered the least from noticeable auto transmission lag. On the go though, the steering feels positive, and the weighting is tweakable via the menu systems. Initial feel gives you confidence to mount a credible assault on criss-crossing roads, helped by the latest tweakings to suspension, bushes and a new active damping system (4WD versions only) with Comfort, Sport and Advanced (self-adjusting) settings. These are complemented by a better stability control suite with new roll angle sensors and a torque vectoring system which sharpens up on-the-limit cornering by braking the inner wheels and sending more oomph to the outer wheels to keep things tidy.

The common thread across the range of course is that new skin, which challenges Audi’s A4/A5, Beemer’s 3 and the Passat CC. It contrives to give a four-door, five-seater sedan a coupe-like image – truly a brave departure from Volvo’s boxy precedent. Instead of a mish-mash of right angles, it offers a curvaceous visual treat starting up front with the pushed forward airdam and steroidal Volvo ‘iron mark’ on the bold, chrome accented grille. It’s a styling code adopted on the exuberant XC60 and convincingly grafted on the new C30 and C70, so no real surprise. But on the S60 it feels more resolved, helped by daytime running lights which flank the grille and headlamps which are less geometric than ever. The bonnet is equally organic in shape, giving the nose a porpoise-like cast, while the profile follows suit with a smooth blend of curves and creases swelling over the arches and pinching in at the door line to achieve that coupe-ish silhouette. The rear culminates in a tiny boot lid overhang, tucking in to a pair of LED-emboldened tail lamps. Aesthetically the new S60 won’t offend, but it does split opinion.