It wasn’t long ago that most Americans assumed the Swedes had completely removed themselves from the automotive industry. Saab vanished into the ether altogether, and Volvo was reduced to a trickle of cars and wagons. But with the emergence and all-around excellence of the full size XC90 SUV (winning illustrious awards like Motor Trend’s “SUV of the Year”), Volvo has popped back on the radar of many luxury buyers.
The second vehicle to mark this resurgence of the storied Swedish brand is the midsize S90 sedan. It is the second vehicle to emerge from Volvo’s studios since the company was bought by the Chinese automaker Geely, and the massive financial investment is evident throughout.
With a marked $11 billion in investment, all these new Volvos began with a clean-sheet design. Nothing was sacred; everything had to be re-imagined from the ground up. This revolutionary white-sheet rebirth is unprecedented in the automotive world and has allowed the Volvo brain trust to develop a thoroughly well thought-out and engineered foundation from which to be reborn. This is what we learned from our first test drive of the brand new Volvo S90.