2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design
The 2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design doesn’t offer any additional horsepower under the hood but it does pack some nice features that make it a pretty nice crossover. The car has now a stiffer suspension and a special red paint, a real eye-catcher. This red paint, dubbed Passion Red, is exclusive to the R-Design and you can easily distinguish it from the rest of the colors available. Another exclusivity of the car is the impressive 20-inch rim with the generous XC60 logo. The last outside tweak of the car would have to be the new color-matched cladding located along the lower realms of the R-Design’s bodywork.
Moving inside the car, you will notice the center shack which is now covered by a new, more expensive dark material and the leather seats which sport contrasting leather panels for extra style. To really stand out from the crowd, the “R-Design” logo has been embossed in the leather. Our favorite addition to this package is the steering wheel covered by perforated leather and a bundle of contours available.
One of the variations of the car is the T6 AWD that packs a 3.0-liter 6-cylinder engine that is capable of outputting 300 hp and 325 pd-ft of torque. The engine is linked to a 6-speed automatic gearbox that offers all that power to the four wheels. Although it has a considerable weight of 4,225 pounds, the R-Design doesn’t have any problems, especially when the turbo kicks in. Although the car is not as fast as many might have hoped, it will do the job quite nicely in any given conditions.
2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design
The acceleration of the 2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design doesn’t have anything impressive and you will notice that the car still has plenty of room for upgrades. The reworked dampers along with the stiffer spring make it a jarring ride over pockmarked roads and broken pavement and you will notice that basically it still drives like a CUV. The car has the tendency to understeer when you start sawing that beautiful wheel, but it still is a pretty nice car to drive.
2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design
A more significant downside of the car is the navigation control which is located behind the steering wheel, making the buttons almost impossible to reach. You’d think that for a 2011 model engineers would have worked to make the interior very intuitive and easy to access, you would be wrong. Luckily, the 2011 Volvo S60 ditched this awful system and most likely so will the XC60 once a refresh arrives.
Another problem of the car is the key system. The XC60 is operated by a key fob that has the approximate size of a box of matches, but it doesn’t use the same radio frequency technology that the rest of the luxury automakers use. In order to start the car, the driver of the XC60 must insert this fob, wait for an electric motor to suck it into the dashboard and after that he can press the start button. It is not a very good system in our opinion, especially if you are in a hurry as this can get a little bit annoying after a while.
The price for the R-Design starts from $41,550, but by adding the 20-inch rims mentioned above, it enters the BMW X3 xDrive35 pricing range. Although the bimmer offers a more comfortable suspension, the looks of the Volvo are just great, both inside and out. With a little bit more power, a new set of dampers and without that awful starting system, the 2011 Volvo XC60 R-Design would be a great car, it still is despite its minor flaws.
