Volvo’s flagship S80 is a nice car, sure. But it’s ancient in car years, pales in comparison with gems like the Audi A6 and the Cadillac CTS, and barely registers a blip on the sales charts. (Cars that outsold the S80 in 2014 include the Porsche Cayman, the Scion iQ, the Chevrolet SS, and the Mercedes-Benz G-class.) Free from Ford’s oversight, Volvo has nearly finished development of its S80 replacement, the S90, a 2017 model that will debut in a few months at the Detroit auto show and should be in dealerships sometime next summer. (The S90 was originally slated to precede the XC90, but executives, noting the increasing popularity of crossover vehicles, changed the priorities and declared that the SUV needed to reach the market first.)
We’ve already gotten a behind-the-wheel taste of the S90 in two, developmental, forms. The first was on Volvo’s multi-million-dollar new driving simulator, which comes from VI-grade, the same company that supplies a similar setup to Ferrari and Porsche—and, according to Volvo, no other carmakers. The simulator (pictured at bottom) primarily allows engineers to test different chassis-tuning and drive-mode settings, so that they can get the car’s ride-and-handling characteristics pretty well dialed in before installing real parts on actual prototypes, streamlining the entire process. We completed a few miles of a vivid digital Nürburgring course before aborting the exercise because of a legitimate worry about our breakfast reversing course in our digestive system. (The simulator can take a lot of getting used to, particularly because braking inputs can’t be easily modulated. After a couple of cloudberry-based desserts, though, we’re feeling much better now, thank you.)
We also drove one of the first two S90 prototypes, at Volvo’s 1700-acre Hällered Proving Grounds near Gothenburg, Sweden. The prototype, pictured above, has been around in “finished” form since about 2009, and is named Costello. (The other was named Ebbot, which is sorta like Abbott but also the surname of one of the engineers, Tobbe, spelled backward. Hilarious, those Swedes.)
Costello uses the body of a current-generation S80, but it has an (ill-fitting) carbon-fiber hood to simulate the weight balance of the real S90. It also has a turbocharged five-cylinder with the boost cranked up, to mimic the power of the turbo four-cylinder that will end up in the S90. Costello has a six-speed manual with a finicky clutch, not because the upcoming S90 will have a stick shift but because that’s the only transmission that could fit in this old body. It also has outdated hydraulic steering, not the electric system that will be in the production car, but the S90’s suspension parts. (Like the XC90 that’s built on the same SPA architecture, the S90 will feature control arms in front and a multilink rear suspension with a transverse composite leaf spring, à la the Chevrolet Corvette.) Costello the Early Prototype felt quite sporty, planted, and composed, in the vein of a Cadillac CTS, but the setup we drove will likely be found in S90s with the optional sport suspension. In line with Volvo’s new approach to powertrains, the S90 will utilize engines with no more than four cylinders, and electrification of some sort is in the cards.
Much to our hosts’ dismay, we caught a glimpse of an undisguised S90 at Hällered; unfortunately, they had commandeered our camera during the visit. Imagine a lower XC90 with longer proportions—and cues from recent knockout Volvo design studies such as the 2013 Concept Coupe (shown at top) and the Concept Estate—and you’ll get a general idea of how striking this car looks. We anxiously await a chance to stare at it on an auto-show turntable in January—and to drive the real S90 soon after.
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