1995 Volvo 850 T-5R vs. 2024 Volvo XC60 Recharge: Turbo Brick Meets Techno Brick!

I promised the Volvo PR guy I’d take it easy in the 1995 Volvo 850 T-5R, but his S60 is getting smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. I’m not even pushing that hard—I’m just following my old-car SOP, which is to let the car run as long as it feels good. But this, I realize rapidly, is the problem with the T-5R, known in its day as the world’s fastest station wagon: It always feels good.

This particular Volvo 850 T-5R is on loan from the carmaker’s heritage fleet, and it’s rare, one of only 49 U.S.-bound ’95 wagons to wear Cream Yellow paint. Volvo seldom lets it out to be driven, let alone driven on these challenging canyon roads, and it’s obvious the 29-year-old 850 T-5R is as excited to be here as I am. It exhibits an endless supply of grip and unbreakable composure, sailing through the turns as if the tires are magnetically attracted to the pavement. This car on this road would be magnificent at full tilt, and here I am barely leaning to one side—but the ever-shrinking Volvo sedan in the rearview mirror, with an ever-shrinking PR man sawing away at his ever-shrinking steering wheel, says otherwise. But the old car wants to run, and who am I to disappoint it?

See All 60 Photos60

Meet the (Former) World’s Fastest Station Wagon

Those old enough to have used a rotary phone will recall Volvo’s late-20th-century penchant for hot rod wagons. (Remember the ads explaining the 740 Turbo wagon by showing a Lamborghini Countach towing a trailer?) At the time of its introduction, Volvo billed the 850 T-5R as the fastest station wagon ever built, a claim fact-checked by MotorTrend: For our May 1995 issue, we pitted a T-5R wagon just like this one against three European sport sedans and clocked it at 153 mph. (There was a sedan version of the T-5R, but the world’s-fastest-wagon thing was too much to resist.) Priced at $37,095, the Volvo cost twenty grand less than the rivals it had little trouble chasing down, none of which could haul a pair of wingback chairs home from an antique store the way the Volvo could. 

The Volvo 850 T-5R expanded on the formerly top-of-the-line 850 Turbo with bigger wheels and tires, a modified front spoiler, a bangin’ stereo, and every one of the Turbo’s options as standard, including a sport suspension, keyless entry, and Volvo’s first-ever side airbags. The T-5R’s reprogrammed ECU allowed the 2.3-liter turbocharged inline five-cylinder engine a 30-second 10.9-psi overboost (up from 9.5) at engine speeds above 5,100 rpm. Horsepower rose from the Turbo’s 222 to 240, while torque was the same at 221 lb-ft. But the standard-fit four-speed auto—Volvo didn’t offer the five-speed manual in the U.S.—meant the overboost feature did little for acceleration below the speed limit, and the 850 T-5R’s 7.1-second 0–60-mph run was actually one-tenth slower than the 850 Turbo wagon, likely down to the weight of all that standard equipment. 

See All 60 Photos60

The Overboost Concerto

The road flattens out and I get on the power, figuring the PR guy is now so far behind me, he won’t realize I’ve gone foot-to-the-floor until he reads this article. Besides, I’m not doing it for the acceleration, but for the sound—oh, the glorious sound! How do I explain it in mere words? Volvo’s inline five-cylinder engines produce a ghostly wail that’s unlike anything you’ve likely ever heard from any source, natural or mechanical. The T-5R adds a buzz from the exhaust and a whistle from the turbo, bass, midrange, and treble blending to form a soundtrack as unique as a 153-mph station wagon. 

The engine develops power like a classic V-12. There’s little urge at first—turbo lag, dontcha’ know—but then the power hits at you like a wave. Not one of those sudden, unexpected breakers that crash over you in a surprise drenching, but a gigantic, benign-looking roller that gently lifts your boat and then smashes it to splinters on the shore. Once it comes on, the power feels like it will never stop, the transmission holding each gear a little longer than you’re used to because it has fewer gears than you’re used to. But oh, is the gearbox ever responsive: One little tap on the accelerator, and the transmission kicks down, the revs kick up, the turbo kicks in, and you can guess exactly where you, the driver, get kicked. I have driven many mechanical temptresses in my time, but few sing the siren’s song like this lovely old 850.

See All 60 Photos60

Binders to Back It Up, but Oh, That Suspension

The brakes are equally brilliant. Their initial bite is a gentle nibble, so you won’t slam the fam into their seat belts in a routine stop. But when you really need them, the pedal goes rock hard, and you modulate the braking action with pressure more than travel. The brakes are so good, I find myself letting the car pick up extra speed just so I have an excuse to use them; after all, I did promise the PR guy I’d take it easy. 

Back in the 1990s, no one had mastered the ride-handling compromise like the Germans, a fact of which the Swedish 850 T5-R now reminds me. The ride is firm and busy, and the car feels so hefty it could be made of cement, though in fact it weighs less than 3,400 pounds. Body roll is nonexistent no matter how clumsily I jerk the wheel. The steering is strange: very heavy and unexpectedly eager to spring back to center with an almost waterbed-like mush. And yet it chit-chatters with feedback, dancing lightly under my fingers so long as I keep a light touch on the wheel. It sings in concert with the constant jiggling from the suspension, forming a whole-body feedback loop that tells me precisely what the road is doing beneath the tires. Comfortable, no; effective, hell yes. I just have to remember to tighten my grip on the wheel before I hit the gas, because this is a front-wheel-drive car, and the torque-steer is a mother.

See All 60 Photos60

Bring on the XC60 Recharge: New vs. Old

I’m so enjoying the T-5R that I’ve nearly forgotten my goal in the here and now: to compare this classic old mom-racer with a modern-day XC60 Recharge Polestar Engineered, the most powerful and agile version of Volvo’s bestselling SUV. Why the XC60 and not the V60 wagon? Believe me, I struggled with that decision. I picked the XC60 because in its heyday, the 850 was the XC60. Back then, wagons weren’t cool; they were minivans for people who weren’t ready to embrace the 1990s. Only the boxy 240 and 740 that preceded it prevent me from writing that the 850 wagon was as square as a car could get.

Though separated by 30 years, the 850 T-5R and XC60 Polestar share a common ethos. Both have era-appropriate methods of developing extreme power: four valves per cylinder and a turbocharger for the 850, and a supercharger/turbocharger setup plus a battery-fed electric motor for the XC60. The XC60’s Polestar Engineered option, like the 850’s sport suspension, is designed for handing over comfort. And here, conspiracy theorists, is the final bit of lurid evidence: If you adjust the 850 T-5R’s 1995 price for inflation, it’s just a couple of Benjamins more than the 2025 XC60 Recharge’s $75,250 MSRP. (Coincidence? Oh, sure, that’s what they want you to think.)

See All 60 Photos60

Are They Really Related?

Still, but for the diagonal line across the grille, it’s difficult to reconcile these cars as relatives. Modern-day Volvos offer nothing like the 850’s yellow paint, a grin-inducing shade carefully softened so as not to sear your retinas. No grinning inside the old Volvo, however; the 850 T-5R’s black interior, trimmed with boardroom-grade burled walnut, is as cheery as a funeral. The dashboard is cluttered with more buttons and dials than you’ll find spread across a dozen modern Volvos, and once I get over the nostalgic novelty, I find myself longing for the glass-cockpit motif of the XC60. 

Truth be told, I was tempted to drop the comparison aspect of this article. Early in the morning, as I took the XC60 for a preview loop through the curvy roads on my way to meet up with the 850, I wondered if I should have picked the V60 wagon after all. The XC60 is capable and quick, doing 0–60 in 4.3 seconds, a number the Volvo engineers of the 1990s probably never believed possible, which might also apply to its 4,700-pound curb weight—but it’s far from the most thrilling thing I’ve driven.

See All 60 Photos60

Finding Common Ground

But after a lovely couple of hours running from the PR man in the 850, I realize I need to reassess. Heading back to those wonderful curves in the XC60 and pushing harder—I made no promises about how I would drive the new Volvo, thank Thor—I find the T-5R wagon’s roots are still very much present in this modern Volvo SUV.

With the drive mode set to Polestar, the XC60’s ride is busy and active, and yet it stops just short of annoying, just like the 850 T-5R. The electric steering, though nowhere near as communicative, has its own funky feel. Overlying the entire experience is a now-familiar sensation of unflappability: No matter how I hustle the XC60, be it smooth and suave or firm-fisted and intentionally clumsy, I cannot upset this chassis. Although it comes perilously close to the limits of its suspension travel, it refuses to do anything silly or stupid. Like the 850 T5-R, it rarely reveals its family-car origins. The worst of which I can accuse the XC60 is taking itself too seriously, but didn’t I have that same thought from behind the wheel of the 850 T-5R—at least before I drove it? 

Careening through the curves, I think about what it will be like for a MotorTrend staffer of 2054, who will perhaps one day zoom down this same road in the XC60 Recharge Polestar Engineered that will one day join the 850 T-5R in Volvo’s heritage fleet. I hope to be long retired by then, but I have some advice for my future replacement: When the PR guy asks you to take it easy, pretend you didn’t hear him.