Volvo’s new V90 is a good looking estate

You have seen the Volvo S90. And if your eyes are anything like ours, you’ll have liked it quite a lot.

Now, it’s time to meet its more practical estate sibling. This is the new Volvo V90, and we’re willing to argue it’s even more handsome than the saloon.

Estates like this are Volvo’s traditional hunting ground, of course. In recent years, though, they’ve not been quite as enormous inside. To really shift your oddly named flat-pack furniture home in comfort, you’ve needed an E-Class estate.

While still smaller inside than the Merc, this V90 is much more like it. But Volvo reckons functionality nowadays is about way more than throwing things into a big boot. It also encompasses connectivity, and the V90 will have plenty of that, Apple CarPlay the most obvious highlight.

As you’d hope for a Volvo, there are also many nods towards safety. First off, there's ‘Pilot Assist’ semi-autonomous driving ability, not dissimilar to Tesla’s Autopilot.

Other highlights include ‘run-off road mitigation’, to stop you drifting into a hedge if something catches your eye (hopefully not all that lovely connectivity…) and ‘large animal detection’. No doubt developed with Sweden’s moose in mind, it will probably only be troubled by rogue Mastiffs and Newfoundlands back here in Britain.

Based on the same platform as the S90 and XC90, its engine range is the same too. There are two four-cylinder petrols - a 251bhp T5 and a 316bhp T6 - and two four-cylinder diesels, the 187bhp D4 and 232bhp D5. Front-wheel drive as standard, the most powerful version of each gets AWD.

There will also be a range-topping T8 petrol-electric hybrid, producing 407bhp but primarily designed, in the UK at least, to trim your car tax bill. We’ve tried it in the XC90 here.

Most excitingly, though, Volvo’s UK boss has suggested Polestar might fancy taking its performance-minded spanners to the V90. Handsome, dog-dodging and fast: What’s not to like?