Volvo cars have many admirable qualities. Famed for their attention to safety, their ruggedness, reliability and ability to tolerate severe Scandinavian winters, Volvo’s are generally seen as sound all-round family and executive cars. They have also enjoyed a degree of motorsport success, particularly in rallying, where all the aforementioned attributes have stood them in good stead, but also in the unlikely form of an 850 Estate that competed in the 1994 British Touring Car Championships, driven by Rickard Rydell; seeing this antique dealers’ favourite steaming around circuits all over the UK was a sight to behold. Rydell later won the BTCC in a more conventional Volvo, an S40 in 1997.
What the Gothenburg marque has generally not been seen as, is cool. SAAB were always the Swedish manufacturer that received that accolade – perceived as different and more contemporary, allegedly the favourite car of architects, all helped by the company’s links to the aerospace industry.
Nor are Volvo’s generally seen as stylish – though it’s fair to say that there have been the odd exceptions, the obvious one being the P1800 and ES1800, and more recently, the C70. Over the last few years, the company has established itself as a market leader in the SUV 4×4 sector, with it’s XC60 and XC90 ranges, though I find these as unappealing as I do all big 4×4’s.
Going back to the 1970’s and ‘80’s, Volvo had an image problem – their cars were boxy, angular, and generally not particularly pleasing to the eye – it was said by some that the best view of a Volvo was from the inside…
In an attempt to address this, Volvo turned to Italian design house Bertone. Their first attempt at a collaboration was, to my eyes at least, a complete failure – the 262C, which was sold from 1978 to 1981. Compared to the elegance of a Mercedes-Benz W123 coupé, the purposefulness of BMW’s E24, or Jaguar’s handsome XJC, the Volvo just doesn’t cut it – slab-sided and with a small glasshouse relative to its size, this was a severely compromised design that looked for all the world like it had been given a “chop-top” roof, and although it was very luxuriously equipped, it didn’t sell well and only 6622 were built.
Be honest – would you choose the Volvo from this line up?
Undeterred, the Swedes went back to the Italians and gave them the Volvo 760 to work with, and at the Geneva Motor Show in 1985 the Volvo 780 emerged out of this second collaboration. This was a definite improvement on the 262C – the balance of glasshouse and bodywork more pleasing, the profile less slab-sided; a less compromised car than the 262C.
It still wasn’t a beauty – it can’t have been easy to give the saloon car’s rectilinear lines a sporty look – but it doesn’t look bad. From the rear three-quarters, I’d say it looks a little like a big Maserati Biturbo, though some might consider that a backhanded compliment. Unfortunately, it, too, was not a sales success, with only 8,518 built (by Bertone in Turin) according to Volvo themselves, in a production run spanning six years from 1985 to 1991, after which the company stayed out of the big coupé market until 1997 with the altogether more successful C70.
Volvo 780……Maserati Biturbo
So not very many of these Italo-Swedish cars were made in the first place, with over half going to the USA, and the Italian and Swedish markets taking the next biggest share. In some major markets, such as Germany and the UK, none were officially imported at all, making our Prime Find this week exceptionally unusual here, for it is indeed a Volvo 780 Bertone Coupé, and the more desirable Turbo version at that.
The car is being sold privately, and the seller has provided quite a bit of background.
Originally exported to the USA, this is a 1990-built car, and is one of the final 300 cars manufactured by Bertone in Italy. Although the original owner lived in Pennsylvania, the seller found the car in Florida and brought it to the UK in 2018.
He has swapped the USA spec lights for new-old-stock Euro headlamps and tail lights and has also installed wing-repeater indicators. The only external signs of its USA-specification beginnings are the front corner indicator lamps, though these can easily be changed for Euro units if preferred.
The bonnet and boot have been repainted, but the rest of the paintwork is original, and he claims the underside of the car is very clean, having spent UK winters garaged.
The cream leather interior is described as being in very good condition, with no sign of the car having been smoked in, though there is some discolouration on the rear parcel shelf, no doubt caused by the Florida sun.
The link to the advert is here – 1990 Volvo 780 – and we have borrowed what few photos there are, though the seller says he is happy to provide more on request.
The car has seen quite a lot of use, having covered 164,000 miles, so anyone interested should make doubly sure that it has a solid service history, but despite its part-Italian heritage, this is still a Volvo at heart, and even with such a mileage already on the clock, there’s no reason the car won’t be good for many more miles.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro