Volvo prides itself on making the world’s safest cars.

Volvo prides itself on making the world’s safest cars. The brand-new XC90, as you may have guessed by now, is the latest and safest to join the ranks .

12 years is a long time, and when it comes to cars, it’s long enough for a product to be called ‘ancient’. That’s exactly how long the Volvo XC90 has been around. After flaunting a few (rather good-looking) concepts, the company has finally revealed the latest iteration of its flagship SUV, the XC90.

What you get is an all-new platform that has been developed in-house, with no assistance from parent company Geely. Apart from the massive funding of $11 billion that was pumped in by the Chinese giant after the takeover, no assistance whatsoever.

With the bling factor absent, rappers won’t be trading in their Escalades just yet. The folks who will flock to Volvo’s showroom, though, will be families looking for the safest way to move from Point A to Point B. With a small detour to get to Point C every now and then.

Moving the family-friendly SUV is a 2.0-litre petrol motor that has a supercharger and turbocharger working in unison to make 320 horses and 400Nm of torque. For places like India, where we are in love with sticky fuel, there’s a 2.0-litre diesel motor, too.

The flagship model will get an electric motor teamed with the petrol engine to give the XC90 a combined output of 400bhp. That should be good enough to keep the green brigade happy. The bigger question is, when will the new XC90 come to India? We might have to wait till late-2015 to get our hands on one.

But rest assured, it will come, and with a 15-20 per cent price increase over the cost of the outgoing SUV, no less.