Captain sensible: Volvo S90 D4 Momentum review

It’s safe, pleasant and comfy. Trust Volvo.

The S90 makes you feel more grown-up than the BMW Lynx and the Mercedes Brut.

Ever since I began to write about cars, people have wondered, out loud and with a lot of spittle, why on Earth anyone would want to buy one capable of speeds in excess of 110km/h.

These days, with electronic deterrents everywhere, I’m starting to wonder myself. When I drive from my London flat to Luton airport I am monitored by average-speed cameras the whole way. If I lived in a sensible country I could choose to break the limit and pay a sort of speeder’s tax; but for some reason the government has got it into its head that speeding is a crime, and as a result I get points on my licence and the threat of prison time.

And as a result of this idiotic war on speed, I’m afraid that when I’m asked now why someone might want to buy a car that can do more than 110km/h, I have to concede there probably isn’t much point at all.

Take the large cars made by BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar and so on. All of them are set up to be perfectly balanced as you sweep through a lovely set of S-bends on a delightful sunlit road at 200km/h. Which means you’re paying a small fortune for something that you can only do if you’re prepared to spend the next six months in a jail cell.

Then there’s Volvo, which announced that by 2020 no one need die while driving one of its cars. Yup. If you have cancer or cerebral malaria or meningitis, simply climb into a Volvo and you’ll live for ever. And don’t worry if you have a crash, because the other big announcement is that no Volvo engine will in future have more than four cylinders. So you’ll never be going fast enough to get an injury that is remotely life-threatening.

To hammer the point home still further, the S90 you see here is not even available in the UK with a petrol engine — although you can buy the petrol version in Australia — so I had to test drive the diesel, whose feeble engine clatters like a canal boat at tickover.

Handling? No idea. Doesn’t matter. Steering feel? Irrelevant. All I can tell you is that when you turn the wheel, the car goes round the corner. Is front-wheel drive a handicap? At the sort of speed you’ll be going, you’ll never notice. What I can tell you is that it rides nicely. It’s very comfortable.

And it’s big on the outside. Nearly too big. But that’s OK, because the size translates into lots of space on the inside. And it’s space full of light and air, thanks to cleverly chosen materials. Sitting in a Beemer or a Merc is like being in a well-groomed man’s washbag; it’s all leather and stripes and secret pockets for condoms and what-have-you. Sitting in an S90 is like sitting in a paddock. It’s probably the best interior of any mainstream car on sale today.

One of the reasons is that just about everything is controlled from a generous iPad-type screen on the dash. Often I’m baffled by tech of this nature, but after just two days I was skipping round it without even having to take my eyes off the road for more than a couple of minutes.

And that’s OK, too, because the S90 has all sorts of radar-guided this and satellite-guided that to ensure you can’t veer out of your lane and you can’t crash into the car in front. And even if all of that breaks and you’ve climbed into the back for a snooze, it’s still no bother, because the woeful diesel will have ensured you were going at only 3km/h when you hit the bridge parapet. You’ll probably just grunt a bit, turn over and go back to sleep.

The other good thing about driving the S90 is that it makes you feel more grown-up than the BMW Lynx and the Mercedes Brut. It’s a car for the person who’s confident about themselves, their age and whatever physical deformities have been visited upon them by the passage of time. No one who buys one will have had a teeth-whitening procedure, a tummy tuck or breast enlargements. Nasty diesel engine aside, it’s just a good-looking, comfortable and pleasant car.

FAST FACTS: VOLVO S90 D4 MOMENTUM

ENGINE: 2.0-litre, 4 cylinder twin turbo diesel (140kW/400Nm)

AVERAGE FUEL: 4.7 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, front-wheel drive

PRICE: $82,400

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars