I last drove a Volvo V60 back in the summer of 2011 - here's the proof if you don't believe me. Since then I must have driven well over two hundred cars, and in all that time this medium-sized estate has been puttering along more or less as before.Now, however, there has been a major technological change. Under the bonnet of the new D4 lies an engine which is so important that Volvo is making it available in several model ranges all at once. It's a two-litre turbocharged four-cylinder unit, the first in a series of eight, both petrol and diesel of wildly varying power outputs, which will be introduced in the near to medium future.Some components will be shared, others modified only slightly for different applications. The reduction in development costs may be imagined.You can imagined how pleased Volvo must be with itself for coming up with this idea, but what's the benefit for the customer?Well. That previous V60 I mentioned had a 114bhp 1.6-litre D2 diesel engine and official fuel economy and CO2 figures of 62.8mpg and 119g/km. These figures looked good at the time. Now they look silly.The D4 engine produces a maximum of 179bhp, which makes it much faster. 0-62mph, for example, takes 7.6 seconds compared with 10.1 for the D2. If anything, the D4 is a little too strong for the suspension to cope with in its current set-up, as I found when pulling out to overtake another car on an undulating road in the Derbyshire hill country. The V60 needed, as they say, a firm hand to go straight down the road and not veer towards the vehicle to its left or the shrubbery to its right.So it's a bit racey, a thing not often said of Volvo estates. Yet at the same time its combined fuel economy on the EU test cycle is 74.3mpg and its CO2 ratings 99g/km - low enough to mean that you won't have to pay anything at all for your next tax disc.This is extraordinary. There are many superminis that can't match it. How close the economy figure is to real life I can't say, because this was too short a test to produce a reliable result. But whatever the case may be, there will be nothing to alter the VED exemption until the Government moves the threshold, and there's no sign of that happening soon.Right from the start, Volvo has insisted that the V60 is meant to be a stylish estate rather than a practical one, and you can see why. It's quite an attractive car, but its luggage capacity of between 557 and 1241 litres, depending on the position of the rear seats, is well down on what rival manufacturers provide.Similarly, you might think from an initial glance that you could get four large adults in there without any trouble. You can't. With the driver's seat set up for me (an admittedly tall person) it's impossible for me to sit immediately behind it.Without options, the D4 SE Nav costs £30,595, but the test car had enough options to add nearly £7000 to that price. A nice one, and relatively cheap in this context at £350, is the TFT crystal instrument display first used on the V40 and as attractive here as it is there.The most expensive add-on was the Driver Support Pack. It costs £1900, but since it includes adaptive cruise control, collision warning, pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane keeping aid, roadside information display (quite accurate in letting you know the local speed limits, I found) and Volvo's improved Blind Spot Information system, it would take a harder-hearted man than myself to raise any objection.The £1150 Winter Pack (heated windscreen, washer nozzles and front seats, along with cornering lights, auto-dimming mirrors and fancy interior illumination) also makes sense when you look into it, as do most of the other options. All the same, the uncertain handling under pressure and the lack of luggage room don't make this feel like a £37,000 even if the equipment level does, and I'm not sure I understand why the saving of a few quid a year in Vehicle Excise Duty, admirable though the work on reducing CO2 undoubtedly is, should matter all that much to someone who can afford to spend such a sum buying the car in the first place. Engine 1969cc, 4 cylinders Power 179bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 74.3mpg / 99g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.6 seconds Top speed 140mph Price £30,595 Details correct at publication date
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