AS AMAZING AS this job is, it has its challenges. Like being away from home relatively often and driving a different car every few days. I’m certainly not complaining, it’s just that you seldom feel settled. So quiet weeks spent driving a familiar longer-term test car offer welcome respite, especially when that car happens to be a Volvo XC60. That’s because, like most Volvos, it boasts front seats exclusively fashioned from a substance called comfort and cabin ergonomics actually designed for humans. Take the steering wheel boss for starters. It has eleven brilliantly intuitive buttons on it. You might think that’s a lot, but with those eleven buttons you could actually run Sweden. Well, its radio stations (audio), telecoms (bluetooth mobile) and traffic departments (cruise control) at least. Most French cars have boss-mounted cruise control buttons too, but to adjust the radio or answer your phone you practise Braille with a prickly pear behind the wheel. Swedish design may lack Gallic flair, but it’s seldom wants for logic. Everyone who gets into the car for the first time goes straight for the HVAC’s little silver man. You want air on your head, you press his head. That’s the kind of simplicity us techphobic common people appreciate.  

Compared to other long-termers I’ve had the privilege of driving, the XC60 isn’t a constant source of excitement and it doesn’t put me on a power trip either; the extra mass and driveline friction of the all-wheel drive system blunts performance too much for that. No, instead it’s a sanctuary, a serene relaxant and an antidote to the stresses of the day. I love the tactility of the buttons, the solidity of the controls and the quality of the materials used. I know it sounds a bit ‘Heidi’, but there’s real harmony to the interior design too.

Of course there are slight irritations. The common rail turbodiesel’s characteristic five-cylinder beat isn’t the most cultured in this application and with the auto box optimising gear changes for efficiency, it can drone a bit like a CVT. Over-zealous parking sensors pick up motorbikes in congested freeway traffic, muting the audio system for a few annoying seconds, just as the results of last night’s game are being read. I could switch the sensors off, but I’ll forget to switch them on again and crash in the office parking lot. Doh! Last little gripe, the uber-cool rising waistline severely restricts rear three quarter vision. And it’s not just Lotus Elises that can play Houdini in the blind spot. The upside is a sporty aesthetic that adds more desirability to the brand’s long-established strengths of comfort and safety and I can more than live with that.