Volvo S90 India launch in end-2016

Volvo’s new S90 is a car that’s set its sights firmly on the German luxury trio. Engineered, designed and configured to take on Audi’s A6, BMW’s 5-series and Mercedes’s E-class, Volvo’s new flagship however is very different from the competition. CEO Hakan Samuelsson, insists it isn’t a me-too product. “We have an identity that’s unlike the others, and we’ve got a new, genuinely Swedish look which is very elegant and Nordic.”

The car’s exterior styling, in fact, moves on from the heavy shouldered look of the earlier S80. The S90 uses bold lines and minimalistic detailing to help it look crisp and fresh. Some of the bits though are familiar. The nose of the car looks very similar to that of the XC90. The long headlights with the ‘Thor’s hammer’ LEDs look stunning, the concave grille protrudes out to give it a layered effect and the very short front overhang and vertical nose make the S90 look distinctive. Walk around the side of the car and you get more of the same, the new S90 now getting your attention with its smooth flanks. But this harmony is broken at the rear. The tail-lights seem a bit overdone and oversized. And the multitude of lines make the boot look a bit fussy too. One thing’s for sure, you won’t mistake this car for anything else.

Oversized tail-lights and multitude of lines make the rear look fussy but distinctive.

What also sets it apart from the crowd is the stretched out, elongated look. Volvo designers say this is enhanced by pushing the cabin as far back as possible; what they seek is a high front axle-to-dashboard ratio. The S90 also has an extremely long 2,941mm wheelbase.

This makes the car look long in beam and elegant to begin with and then, space inside the cabin benefits too. The problem is, this reduces torsional stiffness. Volvo engineers we spoke to during the reveal of the car, however, insisted that the S90 is well up on rigidity.

“Stiffness is important for many factors like ride comfort and handling, but it is also important for another factor, safety. And it is for this reason that the new S90 has been made extremely stiff.”
Also, Volvo isn’t chasing dynamically impressive cars like the BMW 3-series and others.

What it is interested in is having best-in-class ride comfort, which it why it will use extremely high-strength boron steel in its construction. The S90 is also built on Volvo’s new and flexible Scalable Platform Architecture, and this will bring all the benefits of modern construction. The car’s 152mm of ground clearance won’t be enough for Indian conditions though; Volvo will raise the ride height of the car to make clearing large speed breakers and ramps easier.