Volvo S60 - Wish I may, Wish I Might...

There's something about a Volvo car that makes you want to go "Wowiee!" the first time you see it. And when you get into one, you feel like you're encased in a solid, safe and comfortable ride.

That's how I felt when my late father brought home the Volvo 144 station wagon for the first time and, over a decade later, the Volvo 244 GL sedan.

Fast forward some 30 years later, the new Volvo S60 still has that effect. It looks great, feels great and even smells great.

So much so, car lovers the world over can rest assured that when you cruise about in the new S60, you're going to be such a head-turner that, when you imagine or find yourself in "lesser" cars, you can't help but think of them as "cheap". As pompous as this may sound, that's the kind of effect the new S60 had on me when I went about my monthly test-drive rounds, never mind that the S60 I drove didn't come with 18-inch sport rims but 17-inch ones (which I think is a shame for such a beautiful car).

Anyway, the moment I stepped out of the S60 to test drive the Honda CRZ Hybrid, I felt like I was about to get into some poorly designed Japanese car that not only looked cheap but felt cheap as well. And the thing is, I really like the Honda CRZ Hybrid.

Sigh!

I suppose if you can already afford a luxury model like the S60, you shouldn't really be comparing it to cars that are beneath its class. That wouldn't be fair.

Interestingly though, when I compared the S60 to the Mazda6 and KIA Optima, I didn't get the feeling that I was comparing a luxury model to cheapo ones. That's probably because the latter two can really stand up to the S60 in terms of attractive contemporary design.