The Volvo V60 Cross Country is here to prove we don't need massive 4x4s

Volvo has applied the Cross Country treatment to its handsome small estate car, the V60. TopGear is reliably informed that this does not mean being told to don short-shorts and plimsolls and run laps of the school playing field until your tears freeze.

In Volvo-speak, Cross Country means taking a standard road car and adding ride-height, four-wheel drive and rufty-tufty plastic body armour. The results are always cars we like a lot. You get all the off-road ability most profligate SUV devotees will ever need and a slightly more commanding driving position, without ending up with a two-tonne Canyonero that causes solar eclipses wherever it lumbers. And that costs more to buy, insure, run and even jet-wash than a normal car.

If you can do without the truly hearse-like cargo ability of the V90 Cross Country, try this. The specs are as predictable as they are appealing.

Underfoot, there’s a 75mm hike in ride height. All-wheel drive is standard-fit. And you won’t be short of ‘control’. Volvo says “Hill Descent Control, Electronic Stability Control, Corner Traction Control and a special Off-Road driving model [are standard]” as well. You fall off the rutted campsite track or farm byway in one of these things, and it’s your own fault.

Under the bonnet, there’s a choice of one engine, for now. It’s the heartland four-cylinder turbodiesel: badged D4, delivering 187bhp and 295lb ft. Volvo says there’ll be both mild-hybrid and a Twin Engine plug-in versions to follow. Just don’t expect a Polestar-XC mash-up. There’s a reason Audi doesn’t make an RS4 Allroad, after all.

No word on expected prices yet, but usually an XC version asks around ten percent more than a standard Volvo, so we’d bargain on the V60 Cross Country relieving you of about £40,000. But the good karma of not just plumping for another predictable over-specified 4x4? Priceless, surely…