01 Dec 04
It looks lovely, sounds beefy and goes pretty quickly. But will it or won't it come to the UK? Although the official word on a right-hand drive Volvo XC90 V8 is "no", Gerry Keaney, Volvo's Senior Vice President of Marketing, makes no secret of the fact that he'd like to see the car go on sale in Britain. "I'd love to see a V8 in the UK," he said at the model's launch in Phoenix, Arizona, last week. "But it's not just a case of hitting the 'go' button; there's a huge amount to consider, not least the engineering implications." In particular, making the XC90 V8 in right-hand drive form would require Volvo's boffins to shift a lot of mechanical bits and bobs around - not least, the braking system. "I'm sure it could be done," said Christer Classon, Volvo's Senior Manager of Lifecycle Planning.
When you consider all the technical juggling it took to shoehorn the V8 into the left-hand drive XC90 in the first place, converting it to a right-hooker should be far from impossible. The engine, designed and built by Yamaha, has a cylinder angle of 60 degrees instead of the normal 90. This enables the powerplant to be installed transversely, thereby maintaining the XC90's front crumple zones. The result is the first V8-engined Volvo model since 1927.
