Published:
27 July 2016Turning out a big car that’s comfortable, wieldy, easy to drive and yet also dynamically coherent takes every bit as much tuning effort and skill as setting up a performance saloon.
Often it’s on coherence where manufacturers like Volvo fall down – by mating an unnaturally fast steering rack with particularly soft suspension springing, for example, in a misguided attempt to make a car at once agile and supple-riding.
Not here, though. By and large, the S90 feels like a big, comfortable car that’s at ease with its identity, happy in its own skin, and is all the easier to get on with as a result.
That it isn’t quite the perfect, laid-back, well-mannered, long-distance-covering executive car has more to do with the details of the S90’s driving experience: the particular elasticity of its steering and the slightly hollow and occasionally excitable ride that the car has at higher speeds.
For all that, though, the car probably does an impression of a full-sized limousine that’s good enough to fool most who are treated to the expansiveness of its back seats – and the car’s lack of sporting edge will most likely come as neither a surprise nor a disappointment to its owners.
At three full turns between locks, the S90’s steering rack strikes a good compromise between handling response and stability. With inconsistent weighting and that aforementioned slightly woolly, rubbery tactile feel, it doesn’t have the sense of directional precision of certain rivals, but it’s light and usable.
