(Business 2.0) – Anonymity is not a goal typically strived for by automakers. This is a shame, really. It would make things so much nicer. Buyers would be spared the drama of finding cars that speak to their souls and could concentrate instead on choosing those that speak to their heads--vehicles with good safety chops or that get decent gas mileage. Volkswagen had this vision once, but it has long since veered into the soul patch, among the other sunflower-yellow and cyber-green cars. The Soviet Union set out on this road too: Its putty-gray Moskvitch was an orgy of proletariat blandness that looked as if it had been crafted for the people from an old Norge refrigerator. But anonymity, like the U.S.S.R., is now passe. What we have instead are statement automobiles, such as the vroomy Dodge Viper and the blubbery Lincoln Navigator, which are designed as much to announce the owner's presence--Hey, I'm driving here--as they are to get him somewhere.

Which is why you have to love the Swedes--at least the ones responsible for the new Volvo XC90. (I'll tactfully omit mention of any Swedes responsible for those bulbous Saabs.) As Volvo's entry into the profit-churning luxury sport-utility category, the XC90 is a shiver of cool understatement, by far the most elegant SUV on the market. Slipped into a parking stall in your typical lot, the Volvo will evade the notice of just about everyone--perhaps even its owner. Like that Japanese cloaking device that was in the news last month, the XC90 can vanish in plain sight: I strolled right past my silver metallic test model on more than one occasion.

The XC90 is built on the same frame as several of Volvo's sedans, and in fact looks almost identical to the company's XC70 sport wagon; the ute is just slightly bigger and buffer. It carries the same handsome shoulder profile, the same egg-crate grill, and the same signature V-hood as most of the company's line, and thus will announce itself as a Volvo before fading pleasantly back into the subconscious. What isn't visible, however, is what truly distinguishes the XC90: its safety features.

Volvo has always marketed its cars as the safest in the world. This is a company, after all, that a few years ago explored adding heart-rate sensors to its cars so drivers could be warned if an ax murderer was lurking in the backseat and they were about to fall prey to an urban legend. Such zealousness didn't wane when Ford purchased the company four years ago. Actually, it increased. Somewhere in Goteborg a team of Volvo engineers surely took one look at a wounded Ford Explorer tumbling along the highway like a tossed Schlitz can and laughed themselves silly. Then they set out to show them how it's done.

What they ended up with was what might be the world's first compassionate SUV, if such a thing is possible. Basically, the XC90 wants to safeguard not only everything inside it but also anything in its path. As for the first: Volvo stuck a gyroscopic inertia sensor in the center console to continually monitor the vehicle's lateral and vertical motion, as well as the speed at which it changes. In other words, it knows if you're about to become one of the 10,000 people who die in rollover accidents each year. If the gyro detects a dramatic change in angle, it will crunch the data against a set of algorithms that can distinguish between a forthcoming roll and, say, a fast descent down a cockeyed mountain trail. If the former is looming, the XC90 will act to prevent it--trimming engine power to slow the vehicle while also braking one or more wheels. Should all indeed be lost, it will prepare for the coming trauma: pre-tensioning the three-point seatbelts, firing airbags, and inflating interior safety cushions along the length of the vehicle (over all side glass surfaces), thus protecting passengers from head splat while preventing ejection splat. For extra coddling, Volvo made the cabin cage and reinforced roof of boron steel, which is roughly five times as strong as the stuff that, mmm, an Explorer is made of. Take that, Ford.

As for those outside the lockbox confines of the XC90, Volvo wanted to minimize the unpleasant decapitations common in SUV-car collisions, so it added a bar that aligns at bumper level with the hittee and quickly triggers the other car's safety devices. (Of course, this works best if the hittee is driving a Volvo sedan, but hey, they're trying.) The XC90 also boasts specially rounded corners and smoothed protruding edges, as well as designated crumple zones, so that any pedestrian who might be struck by the vehicle--please note the blame-free construction of that clause--is protected from injury. Volvo has even tested exterior airbags, but, sadly for wayward moose, they're not ready for market quite yet. And there's more: The vehicle's radiator converts bad ozone emissions into good clean oxygen, its emission levels are on par with those of a sedan, and it boasts the best gas mileage of any SUV in its class.

So how does all this good karma drive? Very well, thank you. Volvo cleverly mounted the turbocharged, inline five-cylinder engine sideways, which opened up the cabin dramatically. Inside that clubby leather interior (with all the usual luxury appointments, natch), the XC90 feels much roomier than similar rides offered up by BMW and Mercedes, though it's actually a wee bit smaller. By keeping the footprint small and the center of gravity low--just 3.5 inches higher than the XC70 wagon's--Volvo created an SUV that handles mostly like a sedan, with none of an SUV's typical wobble and yawp.

That the company wrapped all these pleasures within such a demure package was, at first, a little curious to me. Then the man arrived to take away my XC90 tester, a sad moment made more poignant by the simultaneous arrival of its replacement: a Hummer H2. This hulking presence required exactly one passerby in order to earn its first--of many--scornful frowns. I mumbled that the beast wasn't actually mine and then, while the Volvo sped lightly up the hill and vanished from view, ascended into the H2 and rumbled noisily away. So much for anonymity.

John Tayman is a contributing writer for Business 2.0.