Sitting at the elegantly crafted helm of the XC60 with the engine running reminds one of Clement Clarke Moore’s Twas the night before Christmas – you know the line: ‘Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ The Volvo is epically refined. After a week’s worth of starting and stopping the motor at inopportune moments you start looking instead at the dashboard displays for true signs of life rather than trying to hear the 3.0-litre 210kW, 400Nm turbocharged V6 heart thrumming away under its bonnet. The worst was when I shut off (actually started) the engine so that the petrol attendant could ‘fill ’er up’.

Yet I can’t fault the XC60 for the way it cossets in those two-tone leather seats and cuts me off from the hustle and bustle of city life. Volvo is well placed with this car not only to lure patrons of other marques but certainly to retain its current crop of owners.

With the XC60, Volvo believe they have found a home for current C30 owners once they too have grown up, or at least until they can afford one, because this petrol range topper is no cheap thrill.

 ROAD TRIPPER

A planned road trip to Mossel Bay turned out to be a great real world evaluation of Volvo’s new baby, revealing shortcomings and special trump cards. Volvo has long nurtured its synonymy with safety and in the XC60 they seem to have reached a new pinnacle. Take the radar-based Adaptive Cruise Control, which is nigh perfect for the long road as it essentially frees me from using my feet until a fuel change or driver rest break (as indicated by a coffee cup icon on the dashboard) is required. How it works is that while hurtling along the N1 at 120km/h, should a fellow motorist suddenly move into the lane in front of you, your vehicle will automatically slow down until a suitable following gap, predetermined by you, is achieved. Once the road is clear again, your vehicle automatically returns to the set cruise speed, in this case 120km/h. And it’s all very easy to set up, thanks to Volvo’s incredibly intuitive system.