Volvo V90 vs Volvo V60

There was a time when Volvo wagons were regarded as nerdy professor cars. The type of car that might come with a tweed jacket with elbow patches. In the decades since that reputation took root, nerdy became cool, and Volvo took notice. Today, its entire lineup of sedans, crossovers, and SUVs is among the most sharply-styled on the market today. Chief among them is the V90, the Swedish automaker’s range-topping wagon. And like nerds and Volvo, the V90 has shown the wagon can be cool as well.

But wagons are still relegated to a niche, representing less than 2 percent of the new-car market. And yet, the V90 shows that you don’t need an SUV to get a supremely versatile vehicle. This is especially true of the rugged-yet-posh V90 Cross Country, which has very few rivals. The Audi A6 Allroad, and to a lesser extent the Subaru Outback, represent the only 1-to-1 competition to the Volvo V90 Cross Country. Read on to learn about the 2021 Volvo V90 wagon and we’ll see if it can supplant the SUV as your de facto family vehicle.

Station wagons are to Volvo what pickup trucks are to Ford or Chevrolet. They’re this automaker’s bread and butter, vehicles that are integral to the Volvo brand and that represent a comfort zone for the Swedish automaker’s designers and engineers.

So while wagons have been declining in popularity for decades, Volvo has stuck with them. The current-generation Volvo V60 was introduced for the 2019 model year as the wagon companion to the Volvo S60 sedan. Its closest competitor is the Audi A4 Allroad, a similarly-sized wagon from another luxury brand. Given the lack of choices, the V60 could also be cross-shopped against the larger Audi A6 Allroad and Mercedes-Benz E-Class, as well the Subaru Outback, which lacks a prestige badge but fills a similar functional niche.

Because the V60 is relatively fresh, it gets no significant changes for the 2021 model year. Volvo offers the standard 2021 V60 in Momentum, Inscription, and R-Design trim levels but also has two spinoff versions of the wagon. The V60 T8 Polestar Engineered sports a plug-in hybrid powertrain, while the Volvo V60 Cross Country gets more SUV-like styling. We tested a Cross Country for this review.