SPY PICS: XC40 to debut in Paris
It's the car that Volvo won't discuss, but the importer wants it badly for the local marketThe car pictured here undergoing testing in Sweden is Volvo's XC40, a compact SUV based on the V40 platform. It's a car that Volvo Australia will welcome with open arms, and it may be here sooner than expected.
According to the spy photographers at Carparazzi, the XC40 is expected to debut in Paris late September. Largely undisguised — other than the lack of badging — the car is obviously a crossover heavily based on the V40 hatch. Where the V40 has painted plastic panels, the XC40's counterparts are unpainted and intended for offroad use. The XC40 rides a little higher and the front bumper is markedly different from the V40's.
The blokes at Carparazzi believe the XC40 will feature the same range of powerplants available in the V40, but we're expecting power taken to the rear wheels by a Haldex system, as in the case of larger the XC60 model. We'll go out on a limb here and predict that Australian buyers won't see any smaller capacity engines in the XC40 for the local market. Forget about the turbocharged direct-injected petrol engine or the D2 1.6-litre diesel; it will be five-cylinder powerplants all the way, we reckon. And we'd bet a pile of dough that Volvo Australia will be angling for automatic boxes across the range.
Based on the local launch of the V40 remaining eight months in the future, the XC40 doesn't look likely to arrive in Australia until the second half of next year.
— with Carparazzi
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