Volvo XC90
Price £35,695
MPG 34.4
Top speed 127mph
The tagline Volvo is running on its adverts at the moment is: "Admit it! You've always wanted to drive a getaway car." Can you imagine? The sedate Swedish firm, a touchstone for middle-class respectability for generations, churning out getaway cars. Screeching tyres, fivers fluttering in the breeze…
Actually, a Volvo would make a superb escape vehicle. The cars are unexpectedly zesty when it comes to performance. They're famously reliable, too, so you wouldn't have to fear grinding to a halt with the police in hot pursuit. They're also anonymous, virtually indestructible and the great fuel economy means you won't have to refill until you're over the border…
But, of course, that's not what Volvo wants you to escape from. It wants to whisk you away from the trudge of everyday reality to a bucolic bolthole. A weekend world of climbing roses and chilled rosé, where if you own a Volvo and a country house you can pat yourself on the back… or, in my case, sit and ponder what might have been.
Last Friday I got to live the Volvo dream. I had the XC90, the marque's premium seven-seat SUV, to test and the country house had been rented – a red-brick rectory in Norfolk. Its flagstoned halls and four-poster beds the perfect setting for a "let's pretend weekend".
There was no shortage of jail breakers hurtling up the M11 that evening. The road was a bumper-to-bumper parade of 4x4s all jostling to escape from the city – and on Sunday evening the same cars filed politely back.
It's a decade since Sweden's biggest export (literally) stormed the SUV market by offering a previously untried blend of non-aggressive yet rugged styling and family-friendly practicality with ferocious off-road capability. In many ways it's the ultimate passive-aggressive vehicle. The XC90 is just as guilty of being a bloated road-hog as the rest of its super-sized class, but it doesn't provoke the same level of loathing.
This is because, the XC90 is the SUV most popular among female owners. Volvo had the foresight to appeal to this influential sector of the car-buying public when it first conceived of the XC90, and women were involved in the design of the car right from the start – something all manufacturers should do. Its smooth lines and gentle curves make it look deceptively compact, and far from being intimidating, the huge Volvo appears rather benign.
Inside there's more evidence of a woman's touch. It feels refined and amenable. The new model has seven seats fitted as standard, and they can be flipped into 64 possible seating solutions, so everyone is catered for. The middle seat even has an integrated child booster. The D5 engine now boasts 200bhp yet knocks out a respectable 34mpg and, as you might imagine with a female-friendly car, the driver support and safety systems are peerless.
At the end of the country getaway, I closed the door on the Old Rectory (and a life that might have been), and pointed the XC90 towards the capital. Cruise control on and satnav muttering, the eager diesel pumped me effortlessly homewards. Yes, it had been a great escape, but who wants to live a double life?
Rural Retreats is the UK's specialist in the rental of beautiful cottages and elegant country homes. Three nights at the Old Rectory starts from £1,509, seven nights from £2,526. For more information, go to ruralretreats.co.uk or call 01386 701177
