King of the crossovers? The 2018 Volvo XC60 T8 makes a convincing case
Jonathan Gitlin
The renaissance at Volvo is in full swing. Flush with funds and a supportive owner, its products over the past few years have proven you don't need to look to Germany to see a luxury car maker at the top of its game. This corner of the market is now all about the swanky SUV, and the 2018 XC60-tested here in its 400hp T8 plug-in hybrid version-makes a strong case that Sweden is leading the pack.
The new era started when Ford sold Volvo in 2010. Freed from American corporate micromanagement, new owner Geely took a hands-off approach, giving Volvo the resources it needed to develop all-new engines and vehicle architectures. It came up with what it calls the Scalable Product Architecture, a highly flexible starting base for all of its medium and large vehicles. The first SPA vehicles were all big ones: the XC90, a three-row SUV that arrived in 2014; then more recently the S90 sedan and V90 station wagons. All are fine vehicles, but with the XC60, the stakes are higher-it's far and away the company's best-selling model.
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