This 1990s Volvo reminded me how good luxury cars used to be

I’ve driven lots of luxury cars – the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, Lexus LS, even Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. These days a proper luxury car has to have a super-powerful engine (probably electrified in some way), eye-catching styling, a prestigious badge and the very latest in interior technology – not to mention a price tag approaching six figures.

But I’ve just spent a week with Volvo’s vision of luxury, 1990s style. This is the Volvo S90 Executive, an exclusive coachbuilt version of the S90 saloon, and it’s a great reminder that newer and fancier doesn’t always mean better.

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The S90 Executive was a bit of an odd duck. It wasn’t a traditional trim level – and it wasn’t even built by Volvo. The specialist coachbuilder Nilsson took a standard S90 and stretched the chassis, lengthening the rear doors by a whopping 15cm and increasing rear passenger space in the process.

There were then three options for the interior – Level III retained the rear bench seat, Level II replaced it with a pair of electrically-adjustable chairs and a fixed centre console, while Level I added a fridge between the passengers as well as audio and air-conditioning controls. The Japanese market even got a fancier ‘Royal Hermes’ which featured leather upholstery from the famed Parisian fashion house.

The model I’ve been driving is a Level II. It’s powered by a 2.9-litre straight-six engine paired to a four-speed automatic gearbox, and is absolutely resplendent in a dark aubergine purple colour with tan leather. I think it looks spectacular – it’s boxy in the way that only a 1990s Volvo can be, but the lines are a bit softer and not quite so severe as the earlier 700/900 Series models.

The huge rear doors mean you can step inside elegantly, and once you’re there you can slide yourself back into a sumptuously comfortable rear seat swathed in buttery-soft leather. The carpets are thick, the wood veneer incredibly 1990s-coded, and the whole affair is nothing short of charming.

Up front it’s almost as nice. The dashboard and steering wheel are swathed in wood, the seats superbly comfy and all the controls operate with the sort of reassuring solidity you’d hope for from a Volvo.

Fire up the engine and it settles into a fantastic six-cylinder throb. With 204hp pushing through a four-speed automatic gearbox, this isn’t a quick car. What it is instead is effortless. It doesn’t drive along the road – it wafts, with soft suspension ironing out lumps and bumps like they weren’t even there.

By the standards of 2026, this car is basically a prison cell. A modern Volvo buyer wouldn’t know what to do with all those knobs and switches – they’d be wondering where their touchscreen has gone. And how on earth are you supposed to know where you’re going without Google Maps?

There are these funny stick things that point to numbers instead of a digital speed readout, and twiddly dials to set the temperature. And where are the USB ports?

But that’s part of this car’s charm – it harks back to a day when a luxury car wasn’t just a wheeled computer, but was meant to be something of a sanctuary. Rear-seat passengers in the S90 Executive could have a car phone installed, of course, but there’d be no laptops out or constantly connected emailing. The back seat of the car was a retreat, a place to relax, sensory deprivation rather than sensory overload.

It’s something that I think modern luxury cars are missing – the option to just switch off. And that’s the best feeling of all.

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