Volvo is clearly proud of its new XC60's safety pedigree, but while that indeed is a major highlight of the newcomer, rest assured that your peace of mind is not the new quality machine's only strong suit.

Yes, the new system that will minimise the chance of a collision when you are texting while driving in traffic, the anti-roll device to minimise your chances of rolling over or, if you still manage to roll, prepare the car to protect you are all part of the deal. Not to mention that it takes measures to ensure that if you happen to crash into a small car, that the other car's safety systems still work well enough to protect its occupants.

It's all part of Volvo's admirable efforts to prevent road accidents, injury and death and it all comes as part of the XC60 deal as the safest Volvo yet.

But there's more to XC60 than just safety. Much more.

Its looks for starters. While still unmistakeably a Volvo, XC60 certainly strikes a chord between rugged off-road and stylish coupé — it's a damn good looking car and so far ahead of anything we recall as an old slab-sided box that looked like a hearse and everyone knew was a Volvo.

On the road

On the road XC60 is impressive too. After playing chicken with a full-sized baloon car to demonstrate that trick new accident prevention system (rest assured it works brilliantly if you have the balls not to instinctively drive around it or brake for yourself — stopping millimetres from or just touching the 'car' ahead...) the wonderful roads of the Cape Peninsula proved the new Volvo to be all they promised.

We drove the 136kW 400Nm 2.4 diesel and found it to be torquey, willing and powerful enough, its gearbox intelligent enough (although I clearly missed the option of either a sportier shifting option or paddles to easily do it myself) while steering feel was impressive for a Volvo for sure.

Ride is brilliant and handling quite impresive for what we could manage on the route, albeit that the steering is a little dead around its straght-ahead position. Still, it's steets ahead of what we had come to expect from a Volvo.

So after a short first interlude, we emerged most impressed with the all-rounder that the XC60 so clearly is.

Volvo is also quite bullish about the SA car market too — something quite refreshing for a brow-whipped SA car industry player — and predicts a turnaround by year end, a few months after what we have always stood alone in promising.

It expects to sell 220-odd XC60s in the first month and has stock on hand for that, with an average of around 60 a month from there.

That won't be too easy, not only because of the market, but because of the likes of Audi's Q5, which hits South Africa in a fortnight.

But with healthy competition like that, here's to the market being even better than Volvo's seemingly bold expectations...