Volvo V40 Production ENDING this year – High-Riding ‘Hatch’ on the way

Production of the Volvo V40 will end this year, and it will be replaced by a high-riding coupe roof hatch, which sounds like the Volvo 40.2 Concept.

Volvo has managed to replace the full range of 90 and 60 Series cars in the last few years, and introduced the first new 40 Series car with the new XC40. But what of a replacement for the Volvo V40?

The Volvo V40 is the last of the old, pre-Geely, Volvos still being built, sitting on a platform which can be traced back to the Ford Focus and Ford’s days at the helm of Volvo, despite which it still sells, albeit in lower numbers, and is still the best-selling Volvo in the UK.

But Volvo is going to end production of the V40 this year, and it seems they don’t have plans to immediately replace it, but when they do it won’t be with another traditional hatchback.

Speaking to both Top Gear and Autocar, Lex Kerssemakers, Volvo Senior VP, has made it clear that the effective replacement for the V40 needs to be a different sort of car, one which offers the practicality and appeal of a hatch but with a high riding design. Which sounds like the XC40.

But as a halfway point between the new XC40 and the soon to be buried V40 sits a Volvo Concept from a few years ago – the Volvo 40.2 Concept (above).

It offers a high-riding design suitable for sticking the required gubbins for electrification under the floor, a more lifestyle coupe-roof design and decent differentiation between it and the XC40.

The replacement for the V40 may not arrive as the V40 exits, but it would be daft to leave too much room for buyers to desert elsewhere, so don’t be surprised to see at least a concept of the V40’s replacement – based on the 40.2 Concept – arrive later this year.