2000 Volvo C70 Base Coupe 2-door 2.3l on 2040-cars

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2021 Volvo XC40 Review | What's new, pricing, where it's made, pictures

Most subcompact luxury models feel a bit like cheap knockoffs of their bigger, pricier brand mates. The 2021 Volvo XC40, by contrast, is a break from the Volvo norm in a good way. It rides on a different platform from other Volvos, resulting in a small SUV that's a bit more playful to drive, but still possessing the solid, refined feeling one expects from the brand. Its design is more utilitarian and youthful, eschewing luxury materials like chrome and wood in favor of elements like contrasting roofs and more vibrant colors (you can get orange carpet!). Importantly, it's also one of the larger, more versatile vehicles in the segment and provides more features for the money. Basically, it's a desirable vehicle to buy on its own merits in a segment that often feels like you got it cause you couldn't afford something pricier.   And for 2021, it stands out from the crowd even more thanks to the addition of the XC40 Recharge all-electric model. Admittedly, its 208-mile range and overall efficiency are modest, but there are so few alternatives that it still merits consideration, especially for those who intend to stay closer to home. What's new for 2021? The XC40 gets some minor feature content changes, but the big news is the addition of the XC40 Recharge all-electric model (it was supposed to arrive last year). Besides its powertrain, the Recharge gets subtle styling differences and the same Android Automotive tech interface found in the Polestar 2. What's the XC40 interior and in-car technology like? Volvo’s interiors are very tidy and architectural in terms of design, and the XC40 is no exception even if its specific design diverges from the 60 and 90 series norm. ItÂ’s pleasingly simple, using nice materials, comfort and conservative modernism as its foundation. Leather is even standard, though we would like to see an alternative provided, such as the beautiful woven textiles found in Volvos' other cars. Besides its design, one of the ways the XC40 differs from its siblings (and indeed its competitors as well) is its clever center console design. It features numerous large, grippy bins to store, secure and charge devices, plus useful cupholders and a sizable under-armrest bin. There's even a little compartment specifically designed to act as a garbage can. Clearly lots of care and thought went into the XC40. ThereÂ’s a lot of tech baked right in, too, from the standard vertically oriented infotainment screen to the digital instrument panel.

Scratch that new crossover, Volvo teases ad campaign for XC60

If we were to paraphrase the opening lines of Kenneth Graeme's Wind in the Willows for our own purposes, we'd write, "Have you heard about Volvo? They never planned a new crossover at all. It was all a horrid low trick of theirs...." To be fair, though, we can't blame them for our own presumption. When the Swedish car company created a site called LeaveTheWorldBehind.com and teased a couple of videos for some kind of collaboration with Swedish House Mafia, we thought the crossover in one of the teasers pointed to a new vehicle on the way.
Turns out that's not the case. It really is 'just' a collaboration with the band on a music video for Swedish artist Lune's cover of their 2009 song, Leave the World Behind.
But there are Volvos in it, and you can watch it below and hear original song alongside. We've also included the press release with more details on why it all came together, and a behind-the-scenes video on the collabo. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "That's all we have to say about that."

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Volvo V90

Volvo's "Brick Era" of squared-off rear-wheel-drive machines lasted from the debut of the 144 in 1966 all the way through the 900 Series cars of the 1990s, with the wildly successful 240 being the most iconic of the breed on our shores. The final chapter of the Swedish Brick saga came in the 1997 and 1998 model years, when the 960 sedan and wagon were rebadged as the S90 and V90, respectively. Here's one of those cars, a refrigerator-colored (and refrigerator-shaped) V90 wagon that got forcibly retired after a crash in Northern California. Volvo revived the V90 name in 2016, and you can buy a new V90 right now if you so choose. Today's Junkyard Gem, however, is the culmination of four decades of improvement to the original 140 design (itself based on much of the Amazon's chassis features and sharing plenty of components with the 1940s-era PV Series cars), while the current V90 comes straight out of the 21st century. I've been going out of my way to document just about every discarded 140 and 240 wagon I find, with some 740s and 940s mixed in. Many Volvo longroof owners still maintain a fanatical devotion to the rear-wheel-drive bricks, and I've found some of these cars in junkyards with impressively high final odometer readings. The fuel-efficiency and interior-space limitations of the old-timey brick design kept 960 sales lower than those of their predecessors, though, and I haven't met any 960 owners who share the level of devotion that 145 and 245 owners lavish on their cars. This car just squeaked past 150,000 miles during its 24 years on the road. The body and interior look to have been in very nice condition, showing that meticulous owners took good care of this car throughout its life, but then it got T-boned on the right side. This sort of damage isn't worth fixing on a quarter-century-old European wagon, and so here it sits. This engine compartment looks very similar to that of the old 240, though this modern 3.0-liter, DOHC straight-six and its 181 horses runs counter to the super-sensible spirit of most of those 1970s Goteborg bricks. The 960 was far more plush than its ancestors, and priced accordingly. In 1997, this car's list price started at $35,850 (about $60,660 in 2021 dollars). By comparison, a new 1975 245 wagon had an MSRP of $5,795 (about $29,940 today).