Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £16,495 to £24,335
Spacious, smart image, well-built, AWD option, all the assets of the V70 in a scaled-down package.
Stiff clutch of T5, premium prices.
Not cheap, but excellent quality and a practical family vehicle.
Unlike many of the so-called 'lifestyle' estates (Alfa 156 Sportwagon, IS Sportcross), the Belgian-built Volvo V50 manages to be aspirational and desirable without compromising on functionality. It may share its underpinnings with the small family-sized Ford Focus and Mazda3, but its good-looking body is scaled-down V70, with only a slight tilt to its tailgate for a rakish, sporty appearance.
Load space is impressive for a car this size, with a 1307-litre boot, split/flat-folding rear seats, a forward-folding front passenger seat and all the capacity you'd need to brave a trip to IKEA - if you were to over-stretch the generous interior dimensions, there's always the fitted roof rails to take the surplus shopping.
Although shorter in overall length than the previous V40 (a sister model to the unlamented Mitsubishi Carisma), the V50 has a wheelbase 78mm longer and is 54mm wider and 27mm taller. It's also longer than the four-door S40, as well as its Ford and Mazda relatives.
Sharing its engine line-up with its sister model, the S40 saloon, the V50 comes with 1.8-litre (125bhp), 2.4-litre (170bhp) or turbocharged five-cylinder 2.5 T5 (220bhp) petrol engines, plus the 136bhp 2.0 diesel. Automatic transmission is optional with the petrol engines, T5 models come with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, and top of the range is the four-wheel-drive T5 AWD.
