Energetic XC40 breaks cover in Europe

By Stuart Johnston

Admirable, good-looking, playful even.  And of course, if it wasn’t practical, it wouldn’t be a Volvo! These character traits can all be applied to the new XC40, Volvo’s new baby SUV that goes up against the likes of BMW’s X1 and Mercedes-Benz’s GLA, when it arrives in South Africa in 2018.

At the international launch in Barcelona this week, there were four models launched, powered by either a two-litre diesel engine (the D4)  or  a two-litre petrol turbo (the T5). Both engine variants come in two-levels of trim.

As an entry trim level, there is the Momentum, instantly identified by  wheel sizes of 18 inch and 19-inch, with slightly higher profile tyres. The more racy R Design trim package allows for 21-inch wheels, although you can have this variant with 20-inch wheels too.

Only available at this stage  in AWD

At this stage, Volvo has launched the XC40 in all-wheel-drive only, and with an eight-speed Borg Warner automatic gearbox. Later on, front-wheel-drive variants will also be on offer, along with a three-cylinder, entry-level model, while hybrid (electric) versions are also in the pipeline further down the line.

The key-note for the XC40 was to make the essential practicality of an SUV an innovative experience, appealing to the young and young-and-heart. There has been exploration of new ways to exploit the space advantages of an SUV and these can be seen all over the car.

Number of foldable boot space options

The boot has a number of possible configurations, using the pop-up floor-board to reveal extra stowage space beneath the major cavity. You can also fold the pop-up floor up, to enable a boot-divider that is handy for securing shopping bags and other items that you don’t want rolling around when you pitch the XC40 into your favourite corner on the way home from the supermarket. Think of a foldable office “file manager” and you get the idea behind the Volvo “luggage manager”

Plenty of energy was also spent in designing stowage areas specifically for items that most of us carry into the cabin of a car. So there is a bespoke area for cell phone stowage and re-charging, while a removable bin in the centre console frees up an area for lap-top-stowage.

And, especially for South Africans, the XC40 will come with a spare-wheel, although it will be of the smaller space-variety.

Based on the CMA Platform

The new XC40 is built on Volvo’s Compact Modular Architecture platform for smaller products. But essentially the drivetrains - including engines and transmission – are carry-overs from the bigger Volvo SUV siblings.

Smart, chunky styling

The smart, chunky, funky body shape of  XC40 offers good access and accommodation for five adults and their luggage. As for interior design, there are similar, but scaled-down themes carried over from the larger XC90, and the whole package is upmarket and  pleasant, with generally good levels of trim quality and plastics. There are however areas around the console are where some of the plastics used are just a little on the hard-and-too-smooth side of the spectrum.

Driving the D4 and T5

We tried two variants on the first day of the launch, starting with the 140 kW (400 Nm) D40. The diesel is smooth with an in-cabin sound track that definitely audible, but not too irritating either, if you push it up to its natural rpm celing of around 4 500. The eight-speed ‘box means you are always in the right gear at the right time; overall the engine is efficient without offering anything too dramatic in terms of power or thrust.

Various drive modes can be programmed in to achieve differing sharpness levels of response, to the steering, throttle and suspension. But on the D4, the responses are a little muted.

The XC40 comes alive in T5 configuration

The suspension used on the R Design T5 model we tried was much sharper, this car using more expensive and firmer mono-tube damping, and all responses on the T5 were sharper than on the D4 model. This applies too, of course, to the impressive 182 kW (350 Nm) engine as well.

Ride quality good on both models

It has to be said, though, that ride quality, on the admittedly smooth roads where we drove in the Barcelona area, was excellent on both the D4 and T5. It will be interesting to see how the new XC40 shapes up on the variable surfaces to be sound on South African soil.

And then there’s the world’s first air-ventilated woofer

There are some super-interesting features to be found on the new XC40, one of them being an air-ventilated woofer speaker for the Harman Kardon audio system fitted on the test models. This big woofer is  beneath the dashboard, thus freeing up space in the door pockets for extra stowage.

Keenly priced

Pricing, when the XC40 arrives here in April 2018, will be competitive. No hard-and fast numbers have been released yet, but the car will likely come in at under R500 000 for the entry model, and extend to around R650 000 for the upper-level model.