The Swedish brand is working on a brand-new Volvo V40, completely different from the one that disappeared

Much as it pains many of us, compact cars, like MPVs, are the next in line to be threatened with death by the SUV craze. The adoption of dimensions and even shapes typical of hatchbacks in crossovers has meant that those who not long ago opted for a city car now mostly lean towards the compact segment, and this is what seems set to happen with the protagonist of this article, the all-new Volvo V40.

Although, rather than all-new, we should use the reformulated, reinvented, reconverted or successor to the Volvo V40, because, according to Auto Express, the model that stopped being produced during 2019 will return to showrooms transformed into an SUV.

Thus, the mutation of one type of vehicle into another, as has happened in the car industry with increasingly blatant examples, will mean the return to the dealerships of the Swedish brand, now part of the Chinese Geely group, of a model called the Volvo V40 but which will not be a compact but a crossover.

A car that combines the virtues of a compact body on an architecture closer to an off-roader, without giving up the dynamism of the former but without coming close, not even remotely, to the attitudes and abilities of true 4x4s.

The new Volvo V40 crossover would arrive, according to our British colleagues, in 2022 and would be built on Geely’s CMA platform.

A new crossover and electrified

In fact, from the words of Lex Kerssemakers, Senior Vice President for Europe at Volvo, the idea is that, starting from the now-extinct V40 concept, a car would be offered that is easier and more comfortable to get in and out of, taller, with greater ground clearance, that is, opting for a higher-riding body, something the Volvo XC40 already offers within the Volvo range.

As if that weren’t enough, Volvo suggests that, in addition to the combustion engines already known from the current SUV at the entry point of the Volvo crossover range, the reinvented Volvo V40, thanks to its architectural characteristics, could also adopt electrification.

Electrification in any of its variants, whether partial or total, using the storage and use of electricity to power any of its systems, as already happens with the Volvo XC40 family. All this means the new Volvo V40 could become the most direct rival to its own SUV sibling.