Volvo's New XC60 Hits The Road

■ We ride in new SUV at test track

■ Car goes on sale later this year

- Richard Ingram

UNLIKE most car models, which tend to tail off towards the end of their life, the outgoing Volvo XC60 sold more units during its final year of production than in any 12-month period that preceded it.

This new version of the XC60 is an extremely important car for the brand, then. Based on the same scalable SPA platform that underpins the XC90 SUV, the smaller XC60 will arrive in UK dealers later this summer. To find out what’s in store, we’ve been to Volvo’s Hällered test track near Gothenburg in Sweden for a passenger ride in the upcoming Audi Q5 rival.

Sitting in the driver’s seat is vehicle dynamics leader Stefan Karlsson, a man who has headed up the XC60 project since its inception more than four years ago. Our car is a pre-production, all-wheel-drive D5 diesel in top-spec Inscription trim.