I can honestly say that I felt at home in this car the minute I sat in the driving seat but that’s not to say that it doesn’t have a few short-comings. But more of those later.

It’s a large car by any standards and, being a Volvo, smaller cars tend to treat it with some deference. The reputation of the Volvo tank is as firmly ingrained as the Skoda tin-can. Both will take some PR effort to change.

Sit in the V70 and comfort surrounds you, nay, envelopes you but here is one of the niggles. Comfortable the driver may be - and the seat adjusts in virtually every direction to make him so - but there is a feeling of isolation from the front passenger alongside. It’s hard to avoid the sensation of being in a cockpit, separated from all passengers.

This is accentuated by the raised centre, hand-brake/gear lever console which forms an almost impenetrable Berlin Wall between driver and wife. Now, some may buy the car for just that reason others may like to fondle her knee occasionally whilst driving along. Could this be another of the V70’s many safety devices, I wonder?

The "Berlin Wall"

Whatever. A great disadvantage of this arrangement is that if you return to the car park to find some peasant has parked too closely for the driver’s door to be opened, clambering over the hand-brake and gear lever into the driving seat from the passenger side if not impossible carries with it the danger of a rapid castration followed by the usual falsetto voice.

Another slight niggle is that the handbrake is off-set at a high level to the right, towards the driver and, in the "on" position is rather too close to my spleen for comfort. In addition I did find myself groping for the absent but customarily, centrally placed hand-brake on many an occasion but I guess that’s only a matter of habit.

The V70 is an excellent car to drive. 2401cc, 5 valve, transverse engine with 163bhp at 4000rpm giving a top speed, they say, of 130mph and 0-62 in 9.8 secs. The book says it devours diesel at a combined rate of 42 mpg which is not bad for a comfort zone weighing 1578kg. The standard cruise control was essential on motorway and dual carriageway driving as only a light pedal pressure takes you beyond 80mph - and Northamptonshire has far too many tax cameras for that to be too much of a joy.

Cornering, road-holding and braking are first class. At low speed, in lower gears there is some slightly intrusive diesel engine noise but at high speed a cardiologist could hear the third heart sound without trying.

Most of countrydoctor’s readers are rural GPs, so would they find this a useful car to drive round the country lanes? Well, they would although, it is a family car rather than a tear-to-the-coronary vehicle and, as such, it outclasses many a people carrier.

Generally speaking storage space is excellent. We used it to transport our daughter to university with all her worldly belongings - and that says a lot. A cunningly placed flexible net can be raised from the rear of the back seats to the roof to increase safety by preventing cardboard boxes and carriers cascading into the front on sharp braking. I doubt that, short of actually including the kitchen sink, we could have transported more between here and Warwick.

For more civilized trips normal quantities of luggage may be hidden by a retractable cover drawn across the luggage space.

I did feel that storage was let down by the disproportionately small glove compartment and the pockets in each of the front doors. Maps? Forget them or toss them on the floor. There’s no room in the front for them.

One thing there is, is a very discrete can-holder in the front console. The console is well designed with all instruments in good vision. Prominently displayed is a message box where the V70 tells the driver when and why it’s poorly or, more simply, whether the seat belts are fastened. Sadly, it is not able to say whether tyre pressures are correct and that is probably marginally more important in this country than the outside temperature.

On the subject of tyres and wheels, I positively HATE the cheap, nasty, impracticable and unnecessary, narrow spare wheel in any car but in a Volvo...really !

A final, very small niggle is that I also disliked the bulky, two-key arrangement, a clicker to open the doors in addition to a normal sized key to start the engine. Many other cars, including my own VW seem to manage with one. Why not Volvo? But that is just a small point.

The car loaned for test was the V70 D5 S. The basic price, before haggling, is £23,955 but with extras (electric glass tilt & slide sun-roof, metallic paint, auxilliary rear facing seats in the cargo area (for two small children), winter pack, rear spoiler, rain sensor and alloy wheel upgrade) the on-the-road price rose to £26,347. The V70 is in insurance group 13 and excise duty band C.

My final impression is of a comfortable, well-built, solid car, with excellent drive characteristics and masses of safety features - even including head-level, side, inflatable curtains. Volvo’s trade mark brick design team were pensioned off to allow this sleekly styled, proud car to emerge. Readers who have the opportunity and the purse to drive one should go for it. I certainly enjoyed the experience. I am not alone. Diesel Car magazine has made it its Diesel Car of the Year. Say no more.