Mar-a-Lago in a 2017 Volvo S90 - Nice!

By Maureen McDonald
Senior Editor
Michigan Bureau
The Auto Chnanel

What kind of sedan would be perfect for a trip to Palm Beach? The 2017 Volvo S90 T6 fits the bill. This is smart, sleek and ever so comfortable vehicle for shopping on Worth Avenue, taking in a fund raiser at Mar-a-lago and fitting in with the swells in one of the wealthiest towns in America or gliding into campy Lake Park for an alley-wide art show.

And my brain was well-engaged in this Floridian destination where royal palm trees line the road and the sun glistens on the sailboats dotting the Atlantic Ocean. I'm enchanted by the idea of seeing Mar-a-lago, the J.B. Dixson, who lives on Singer Island just outside of Palm Beach, forsook her trusted Jaguar to ride with me in this stylish Scandinavian sedan. The 195.4 inch car rides on a 115.8 wheelbase and powered by a 316-horspowered turbo engine with all-wheel drive. Yet it sips an average 25 miles per gallon on a 4-cylinder engine, better than my little VW at home.

Volvo's S90 fits well in the category of the BMW 5 series, the Jaguar XF, the Lexus GS, the Infiniti Q70, the Cadillac CTS, the Acura RLX, and the Audi A6. The Volvo has attitude. It can glide anywhere in style.

We start our day in J.B.'s high rise condo on the Atlantic Ocean, where the view is positively awesome. Seagulls fly overhead while joggers and walkers dance along the sand. Too cold for swimming but warm enough to bring people out of doors without Eddie Bauer puffer coats and Sorel's Joan of Arctic boots. Flowers fill up planter boxes everywhere.

It seldom rains. Except the day we decide to go touristing when the rain poured out of the sky like Democrats weeping after the presidential election. With all-wheel drive, the Volvo pulls through. We resolve to shop in the name of prospering the economy. To be sure, out of state visitors to Florida spent $108 billion in 2015, up more than $4 billion from 2014 and more than $30 billion from five years prior, according to Visit Florida, the state's tourism bureau.

The Volvo made for a vibrant connection. Despite the clouds, the varied safety features had us drive calm and relaxed. Among its assets are a low speed collision avoidance system, pedestrian and cyclist detection, whiplash protection, road sign information, tire pressure monitoring, LED headlights and fog lamps, even corner illumination. A phone-LED dashboard display lets the driver integrate the cell with the bluetooth system for hands-free driving.

Palm Beach Palm Beach is the easternmost town in Florida, located on a 16-mile barrier island. With just 10.4 square miles, it houses 30 of the 400 wealthiest people in the world. Even the Publix supermarket has valet parking. Likely more Rolls Royces and Bentleys than anywhere in America.

According to the town's website, Palm Beach received its name from a shipwreck named the "Providencia." The ship washed ashore in January 1878 with a load of coconuts bound from Havana to Barcelona, landing about the current location of Mar-a-lago. Early settlers lost no time claiming salvage and planting the coconuts, which were not native to South Florida, in an effort to launch a commercial coconut industry.

We start are day at Harold's Coffee Lounge for espressos and coconut macaroons in the revived Northwood district of West Palm Beach . Antique shops, trendy bars, coffee shops and thrift stores enjoy fresh coats of exterior paint. The parking assist feature of Volvo makes parallel parking a breeze.

We roll out on the town with power to spare. Volvo's Drive-E engine, a 2.0-liter, turbocharged 4-cylinder can surge in and out of traffic with ease, especially with its 8-speed transmission.

Power surges, which some mistake for menopause, is good, when we have to pull out of parking places and merge with an ever increasing flow of traffic. We head to Clematis Street, one of the hipster havens of Palm Beach The district has an acclaimed live theater, Palm Beach Drama Works and a whole lot of great bars, restaurants and trendy stores.

But Ocean Drive calls us. The two-lane highway has no shoulder, no places to pull off and take photos of Mar-a-lago, the President's mansion. The 118-room resort was built in the 1920s by Marjorie Merriweather Post, at the time America's richest woman. She bequeathed it to the US government when she died, in the hopes that it would be the future home of presidents. The family took it back, wound up selling it to Trump for under $10 million in 1985. In 2016 he became the 45th President of the U.S.A.

Soon after purchase Trump made most of the mansion into a private club. Its 482 members pay $100,000 a year to use the facilities, which surged to $200,000 when he became president. The club caps at 500 members, but the gold-leaf ballroom is available to the public for fundraisers such as the Red Cross. J.B. has been there. "Drop dead gorgeous," she says.

Alas no public tours. Across the street is the exclusive Bath and Tennis Club, which hosts some of the wealthiest people in the world. We don't qualify. So we head to Worth Avenue, http://worth-avenue.com/shops/where a necklace alone can run $4,000 at a trendy little boutique called Kapsiki.

We travel up and down the street with umbrellas, admiring the bougainvilleas covering the arches and the fancy window displays vying for customers. We settle into Ta'boo, the go-to restaurant where the notables nosh. With a happy hour menu, everything is quite affordable.

Ran out of time to check out the Leopard Lounge at the Chesterfield Hotel, an old exclusive environment where wealthy bachelors dance with younger women, hoping for another whirl at the fountain of youth.

I'm tired from all the touristing, but the driving position of the Volvo keeps me awake enough to cruise over to a mural painting party, the Back Alley Arts Festival in a district designed by fabled landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead at the turn of the 20th century. We buy some beers, some Mediterranean food and listen to some rock and roll.

The Volvo takes me back to the airport. I use the phone-car interface to call my friend Karin who has the V60 and loves it. "It's tight driving so to speak which you feel the road. I like that, as opposed to too smooth luxury ride. LOVE the fact a switch turns automatically brights to dim on headlights, like all the warnings for car too close in front lute in windshield and beeps, beeps when you go over road lines out of your lane. Seats in top of world safety. Their goal: no one dies in their car by 2030. The seat/headrest designed for safety first and super comfort. We are learning navigation but by it when you need it. Like the wiper button that senses moisture on windshield so you don't have to use wiper button as much."

For a few days in this Volvo, the car pampers me so much I think I'm just another billionaire mansion owner in Palm Beach. Quite a nice vision.

Mar-a-Lago in a 2017 Volvo S90 - Nice!

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