Ho-hum turns hip

I began the new year the way I ended the old one: I took a long drive along Interstate 95 and the New Jersey Turnpike.

You can tell a lot about a car on those highways. Posted speed limits are one thing. Real-world speeds are another. On I-95 and the turnpike, traffic runs as fast as 80 miles per hour. If you’re a slowpoke, you’ll spend what feels like an eternity with a scornful world on your tail.

But panic often accompanies speed. Think of the highway as your old high-school classroom. Some former classmates were bona-fide fools. If you had any sense, you stayed away from them. Now, many of those people are driving in lanes next to you. Escaping their company isn’t always possible. If you’re lucky, you’re in a car that brakes and handles well in panic maneuvers.

I was lucky. I was driving the 2006 Volvo S40 T5 AWD sedan. It’s an all-around better car than the original S40, introduced in Europe in 1996 and brought to the United States in 2000.

The first S40 was OK. But it was discernibly lackluster in overall presentation and performance. It created all the excitement of a Toyota Corolla or Volkswagen Golf.

But the newest model is truly hip. It’s light, tight, all-around right. It has a sassily sculpted body similar to that of the larger S80 sedan. The interior is pleasantly simple, a characteristic highlighted by what Volvo calls the car’s “ultra-slim center control panel.”

That control panel, or console, is a wafer of a thing joining the dashboard with the floor-mounted gearbox. It fills space without obliterating it, leaving easily accessible storage room behind its faceplate.

Simplicity simply works well here. Manufacturers too often go for technological bells and whistles that are either too complicated or extraneous. In a recent article, for instance, I lambasted the rear seating of the “Ultra Luxury” version of the Lexus LS 430 sedan. I found it uncomfortable. A Lexus dealer responded, saying that I had done readers a disservice by not pointing out that the rear seats in that model were adjustable, and that they could be heated and cooled automatically.

The Lexus dealer was right: I should have made it clear that the tested LS 430 had those optional, multi-mode seats. But it would have made my criticism even more damning because no matter how I adjusted those seats, they remained uncomfortable for their fussy occupants.

Put another way, complexity isn’t necessarily a good thing. Volvo, as evidenced by the seating in the S40 T5 AWD, understands this. The seats front and rear are simple, orthopedically sound and exceptionally accommodating.

But what I like most about the S40 T5 AWD is its combat performance, which is the best way to describe a car’s behavior on I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s war out there, especially when traffic is heavy and weather is bad.

The S40 T5 comes with a 2.5-liter, turbocharged five-cylinder engine that develops a respectable 218 horsepower and a maximum 236 foot-pounds of torque. Power flow is smooth, consistent.

I drove the model with the six-speed manual transmission -- one of the most agreeable manual gear boxes I’ve ever used. The electronically controlled all-wheel-drive system does its work quietly, automatically shifting and adjusting drive power where needed, as needed.

The S40 T5 AWD is that strange breed of car that the automotive industry calls a “sport sedan.” Its suspension is thus tuned for hard running and cornering, which means that the ride can be hard and bumpy on less-than-perfect roads.

Here’s how it stacks up in several categories:

Ride, acceleration and handling: Ride gets an excellent mark on well-maintained roads, but it can be punishing on rutted and ruined thoroughfares. Acceleration and handling are excellent, which means the car accomplishes lane changes quickly and that it is wonderfully responsive in escape and avoidance maneuvers.

Body style/layout: The S40 T5 AWD is a front-engine, all-wheel-drive, entry-level luxury compact sedan that has a traditional notchback trunk with an easy-load floor. That means the floor is flat and unobstructed, which in turn means you can slide packages in and out without a lot of lifting and bending. The S40 is also available as a front-wheel-drive car.

Head-turning quotient: It’s classy, sassy and attractive.

Purse-strings note: With a base of $28,390, it’s a buy. Compare with Acura TSX, Audi A4, BMW 3-Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. All told, this is my kind of car. It looks good, feels good, does what it does exactly the way it’s supposed to do it; and it doesn’t ask you to spend a ridiculous amount of money in the process.