I don’t know what the best tool in your toolbox is. But I’d venture to guess it’s not a new one.
My grandfather purchased the most reliable tool I own. I found myself thinking of it often as I spent a week driving the 2025 Volvo V90 Cross Country.
No, the V90 Cross Country isn’t that old. However, the basic structure of the model for sale on Volvo lots today made its debut in 2016, which qualifies it for graybeard status in the automotive world. With Volvo quickly moving toward an almost all-electric future, it’s the wily old veteran parked between EX90 and XC40 Recharge models in the showroom today.
Yet, something odd happened to me with this car I thought I knew well. Much about it felt fresh. And everything about it worked. I’ve driven dozens of 2024 and 2025 cars, and I’m not sure any were as consistently filled with good ideas as the V90 Cross Country.
I’ve burned through several electric drills in my 47 years, most built in plastic housing. But, for the most challenging jobs, I pull out the one that’s never failed me — a ½-inch heavy-duty Craftsman piece without a single plastic part that dates from the Eisenhower years. Volvo’s best wagon has a few of the same virtues.
No, I’m not calling the V90 Cross Country old. I’m calling its best ideas proven. It helped me realize just how many unproven ideas I experience in new cars.
My tester model was a B6 AWD Ultra model with the optional Active Chassis with Rear Air Suspension, the Bowers & Wilkins Premium Sound package, and massaging front seats. It retails for $72,935 after a $1,195 destination charge.
The Virtues of a Wagon Show up From the Driver’s Seat
Wagons have faded from American roads over the last two decades. They’re rare enough now that some shoppers don’t understand their virtues.
Only Audi, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz still sell them in the United States. BMW is about to get back into the market, bringing the brilliant M5 Touring to the U.S. for the first time next year.
The logic of a wagon is easy to understand — it has all the cargo space of an SUV with the poised, confident handling only a low center of gravity can give a car. The Cross Country has some genuine off-road mechanicals and can even hold its own with some SUVs in the mud while driving like a luxury sedan.
That sounds fine on paper. But you can’t feel its visceral appeal anywhere but in the driver’s seat. Should the mood strike you, you can push the V90 CC into corners like it’s a sports sedan.
Under the hood is a 295-horsepower supercharged and turbocharged 4-cylinder with a mild hybrid system. Power gets to all four wheels through an 8-speed automatic transmission.
It’s not set up to threaten an M5. However, it has handling and plenty of passing power that no SUV can match.
‘Still’ Looks Sharp
The broad-shouldered look of modern Volvo cars still looks good. These Volvo wagons still look exceptionally good. I’m using the word “still” a lot. But I guess if you’re buying a wagon in 2025, you’re still buying a wagon in 2025.
This wagon is one of the better-looking options on the road. I am famous in the KBB newsroom for my insistence on colorful cars and my exasperation with all things gray. And even I have to admit that Volvo does gray well. The Vapour Grey exterior of my test model looked as handsome as a well-tailored suit.
Inside, Slate ventilated Nappa leather looked every bit as sharp. I’m reluctant to say anyone uses gray well in an interior, but Volvo balanced wide-grain gray-toned wood trim with medium gray leather and dark gray carpet, and even I liked it.
Proven Ideas Inside
The V90 Cross Country’s interior may prove my point about old things better than any other aspect of the car.
It’s trendy, in 2025, for car designers to pair two screens together — one for the driver and one in the center that handles infotainment in the center — so that they look like one wide screen. It’s a high-tech look in photos.
But it has one crucial problem — the steering wheel inevitably blocks your view of part of each screen.
Volvo stuck with the old layout – a screen where the driver’s gauges used to sit in most cars and an entirely separate touchscreen in the center, inches away. No matter how high or low, how far away or near I set the steering wheel, I could not manage to block my view of anything important.
Yes, it’s an 8-year-old design. BMW and Mercedes wagons have abandoned it in favor of the widescreen look. But after experiencing it, I couldn’t help but realize that the old way was simply better. Volvo has been perfecting its ergonomics since 2016. The other idea is new and still has many flaws.
Maybe doing the old thing extremely well is better than doing the new thing no one knows how to do well yet.
I still love Volvo hyper-adjustable seats. It feels like they’ve used some version of this same design for 20 years, and well, see above.
The car’s age brings a few small limitations. The user interface that powers the central screen in the V90 Cross Country looks dated and doesn’t work better than newer designs.
After a week of getting used to the V90, that’s the only major complaint I could find.
The Volvo V90 Cross Country is not precisely the automotive equivalent of an old, reliable power tool built to last. It’s a modern luxury car in a proven design built to last.
