2017 Volvo V90 D4 R-Design

I know, I know - beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that. But come on. Just look at it. Allow yourself a moment to soak in the sight of the new Volvo V90 R-Design. To these eyes, at least, a truly spectacular piece of car design. Even better, as the sportiest of the V90 range, the new R-Design model gets more styling swagger with 15mm lowered ride height, a gloss black grille and bumper finish, matt silver door mirrors and some sharp-looking 18in alloys. You also get part-electric contour sports seats with leather and nubuck upholstery, amongst other jazzed-up interior bits.

Those springs haven’t just been shortened, they’ve been stiffened, too, and R-Design also gets different dampers to the rest of the range; passive monotube ones that deliver compression and rebound damping via a single valve. Adaptive dampers with rear air suspension can be added for £1500 which replaces the lowered sports suspension.

Our D4 test car (the more potent, four-wheel drive D5 model is also offered in R-Design trim) came without the adaptive suspension, which it turns out is an unfortunate omission. Well, unfortunate for us since we had a rather uncomfortable test drive, but fortunate for you, dear reader, as we can tell you without doubt that you should avoid the R-Design suspension.

Sure, speed humps and other smooth-edged intrusions are shrugged off easily, but hit a recessed drain cover or pothole and the V90 shivers, thumps and heaves in a very uncouth and frankly un-Volvo fashion. It does soak up higher-frequency surface imperfections fairly well, and it’s a fine motorway cruiser, but it’s disappointing on B-roads and in urban stuff, regardless of speed.

The silver lining is that the stumpier springs have inevitably reduced the pitch and wallow that we noted up as a moderate criticism in the standard V90, and turn-in feels a touch more incisive, too. Even so, the R-Design trim erodes the comfort of the standard V90 – one of its most appealing attributes – without offering enough of a gain in handling precision in return.