18 Aug 06
I'm not really one for wise sayings but apparently a change really is as good as a rest when you're driving a Volvo XC90. Those of you who have followed its fortunes on 4Car will know already that the XC and I have had a troubled relationship so far, particularly when negotiating the streets of London on school runs. The solution? Very simple: move house. Better still, move country.
I now no longer live in London but up a small path off a quiet lane in the middle of nowhere in the Welsh borders, and in this environment the XC90 is transformed. Just this morning, the family loaded up boogie boards, wet suits, shrimping nets, buckets, spades and a picnic to feed a cast of thousands and headed off to a beach so beautiful and undiscovered I have not the slightest intention of revealing its identity here. And it was just perfect. It swallowed all the clobber without blinking, averaged over 30mpg there and back (try that in a Discovery and see how you get on) and, once I'd flipped down the lower half of the split tailgate, it provided the children with a seat and a shelter in which to climb in and out of soaking swimwear.
Another symptom of life down here is that you tend to spend a lot of time in your car which, to be honest, was not a prospect I was exactly savouring after my London experience. But the XC90 defied expectation. On one day recently I had to leave Wales and drive to the Rockingham race track in Northamptonshire to test a car. I then drove to a meeting in London, then made a late-night rendezvous with a secret prototype near the Millbrook test track in Bedfordshire before driving back to Wales.
It was one of those journeys where you find out things about a car you'll never normally discover, even on quite long conventional trips. Things like how good the seats are, how far it will really travel between fills and what your level of alertness is near journey's end. And in all these regards it was impeccable.
