Volvo XC60: The Wrap Up

To wrap up our long term feature of the Volvo XC60, it’s quite evident that Volvo’s reinvention has been a bright star in the auto industry, and with the 2019 XC60 SUV already bringing that thoroughly Swedish thinking into the mainstream.

First of the new 60 Series models, it’s a vital car for Volvo to get right. The old XC60 was Volvo‘s best-seller after all, not to mention the most popular premium SUV in Europe, even in its final year of production.

Indeed, in Mzansi alone and despite its age, Volvo sold hundreds of the old cars last year. In short, while the S90, V90 Cross Country, and XC90 are important for Volvo, the XC60 hits that broader market sweet-spot. It’s a segment in which the automaker currently has around stern market share of affluent buyers putting strong design and well-crafted interiors near the top of their priorities.

It’s also a segment ripe for conquest sales. Volvo expected 60-percent of the new XC60 buyers to be converts from competitors like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi, who might ordinarily find themselves behind the wheel of a GLC300 4MATIC, X3 xDrive28i, or Q5 2.0T Premium Quattro. Unlike with the XC90, which some felt could’ve been a little more aggressive on pricing, the XC60 starts at a highly competitive R660 000.

When faced with rebooting your most popular car, you really only have two potential outcomes: happily, Volvo has swerved around failure, and this all new XC60 is a tremendous success. The company is aiming for much more sales this year in Mzansi (fugure removed by editor), and I’d be surprised if they don’t achieve that. If anything, I suspect it’ll be production shortages more than demand which proves to be the bottleneck.

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Papi Mabele

Papi Mabele has a marketing background, he is a digital marketing expert with extensive experience in launching and building global brands in the emerging markets. Papi is also an avid tech writer, enthusiast and all round tech junkie. As a freelance writer and analyst he has been numerously published in Popular Mechanics (SA), GQ South Africa, Premier Magazine, Driven Magazine, Bloem News, Courant, The Weekly, Enthooze Magazine and PiE magazine amongst others.