It’s a bittersweet sensation when you are emptying your car just before selling it. You look for all that crap you kept for years in the glove box, the door panels, between the seats, in the spare tire well. You try to feel more or less happy because you know that the money you get will allow you to buy another toy, or at least now you’ll have one less money and time consuming thing in your garage. But in the end it’s a sad farewell to an old friend. That was the situation last Saturday morning, when I sold my beloved Volvo 850 R.
How this Volvo 850 R fell into my hands seems like fate’s coincidence. Now back to January 1996. I was 19, and as a petrolhead I bought and read every car magazine I can, from my country’s leading mags (Autopista, Motor 16 and Automóvil) to some foreign ones (CAR, Autocar and the occasional Car And Driver and Auto Motor Und Sport). In an Autopista issue appeared a road test of a Volvo 850 R in a gorgeous turquoise shade. I fell in love with that car. In those days my father was buying a new car and he considered an 850, but in a rather less exciting version, a base 2.0 liter 10 valve with only 125 bhp. In the end he bought a 940, probably a worse decision. But I kept that mag with the R road test.
Fast forward to 2009. In a very hot summer afternoon, a friend of mine tells me he knows somebody who has a Volvo 850 for sale, and he thinks it’s a Turbo. I suppose it is a T-5 (that’s how the 850 Turbo was named in Europe), but he says “there was an R badge on the rear, and big alloys”. Wow…
I went to see the car, and you can imagine my surprise when I checked the number plates and realized this was the actual magazine road test car. But what a sad condition it was in. Dusty, a couple of dents in both front wings, the front bumper corners broken, tires in three different sizes (although still wearing the original “Volan” rims), and the interior was filthy. Clearly, the owner found it difficult to keep clean the beige alcantara (or “Amaretta”, in Volvo speak) and leather upholstery. I drove the car for fifteen minutes or so, and it didn’t drive bad. Not bad at all. I liked it a lot. But in those days I couldn’t afford a second car (my car was a Saab 9000 Aero then), and I passed. However, knowing my friend Javier likes this sort of cars, I chatted with him about the R, and he traveled 900 kilometres to my city to buy the car and drive it home. The car is in safe hands now.
Jump forward to 2012. Owning about twenty cars, Javier doesn’t have a lot of time to drive the R, but in the three years since he bought it, finds time to repair some things that need attention. Now he wants to buy another car and make a bit of space, and offers me the R at a price I can’t refuse. So I meet him halfway the distance between my city and his, to pick up the car in the parking of a train station.
I went there with two friends to liven up the journey. Their reaction when they see the car is a bit, well, they’re not very enthusiastic. The front bumper has the corners broken again, despite Javier having repaired them before, and the R wears T-5 “Columba” 16 inch rims. Javier says to me: “Don’t worry, the Volans are in the trunk”. But for me it’s love at first sight. Some cosmetic issues aside, the car looks amazing. We do the paperwork, give the money to Javier, shake hands and drive back home.
When I arrive home, my family’s reception is a bit quiet. Clearly they don’t like the car too much. They don’t like the turquoise color, the dirty beige interior, the light birch wood in the dashboard. But it runs strong, the Aisin automatic four speed transmission shifts smoothly, and there aren’t any strange noises. And I know it’s easy to renovate it: only a new set of tires (this time 205/45 R17 Falkens with the factory Volans), a bit of paintwork and a lot of scrubbing on the Amaretta seats are needed to bring the R back to its former glory. A month later, the R has improved to no end.
Now that the car is sorted, it’s easy to see its appeal. For a start, the car is a real looker. The color, the gigantic (for a 1996 car) 17” alloys, the low front spoiler…people stare at it. But there’s more. A Volvo trademark, the R feels and is very safe (side airbags in 1996? a world’s first) and the seats are really comfy, making a relaxing driving. There’s good space for four people, even five. And it’s fast. Perhaps not so in U.S., where a family sedan or SUV nowadays has a V6 as powerful as a 70´s supercar; but in Europe, where the typical car is a Focus- sized hatchback with a diesel engine and 100-130 bhp, the R´s 240 bhp still mean something. Passing is easy- peasy. And that inline five sounds burbly at low revs, so nice when revved…
But the car has its fair share of faults, and curiously, the main one is the same I suffered in my old Saab 9000 Aero: the chassis and suspension set up. While the car has very good roadholding and it’s safe to drive, it’s not very exciting. Yes, it runs like a scalded cat when smashing the right pedal, but the chassis isn’t responsive enough. The steering feels remote, and not very sharp. The R corners flat around bends and it’s agile on twisty roads, but it just doesn’t feel like it likes to play in that kind of roads. It’s not what I could call “a driver’s car”. I suppose that if my R had the manual transmission and the Torsen differential which was standard on European markets, instead the auto, that would live things up.
However, the chassis’ biggest sin was the ride. Oh, the 9000 Aero rode poorly, but the R rides terrible. Those sport springs (incidentally, the whole 850 range has the same shocks, only the springs vary) and the 45 series tires are a comfort killer. Add to that a typical weakness of the 850, the delicate dashboard supports, and for sure you had rattles and squeaks.
Fortunately my R has been rather reliable. The only real troubles it gave me were a leaky radiator, and another weakness with post-´95 850s: the ABS/TRACS module gave up the ghost. A rebuilt module bought from a Volvo specialist in the U.S. solved that.
In the summer of 2015 I thought it was a good idea to look for a smaller, more entertaining car to drive, and this time with a stick. I always liked BMW 3 Series E36s and the chance to buy a 1996 328i Touring appeared. My 328i is proving to be a more “entertaining” car that I expected, its prodigious thirst for oil leading to an engine change for a second hand one, but I think it’s much better to drive. And the BMW’s “new” engine is been successful. I decided to sell the R.
I hadn’t put any ad up when a friend of mine told my plans to another friend, and a few days later I had a buyer for my car. After four years and a half and about 40,000 kilometers, another enthusiast owns it, traveling 1,000 kilometers to collect it.
So I was sorry to see it go. I liked it, a lot. It was so pretty to me…but I’m happy now I see the R is in safe hands again, and happier with a good chunk of cash in the pocket. Although my idea was simply to keep the 328i, it’s irresistible to check the ads on the Internet and look for a new toy…damn, why are there so few Alfa 164s for sale?
My mom had one of these in Red (Turbo), the entire family loved it.
she had the darker wood grain trim though. Which the lighter shade of wood grain trim looks much better.
I loved pressing the sport button when I drove it. Expensive to repairs keep in mind. Sad I don’t see these on the road today, very rare if I do.
The stance of the 850 in the first pic is very aggressive and sporty. Thanks to the excellent alloy wheel choice, those wheels are “BOSS”. Amazing what a deep front spoiler and aggressive tires/wheels, rear spoiler can do for a conservative styled car. The car looks angry and ready to pounce at the competition.
Very honest account of a car that is often forgotten, at least here Stateside. I still see plenty of the “regular” 850s (non-R) around on a daily basis here in Volvo/Saab-loving Massachusetts, but have only seen a few 850 Rs in my lifetime. Your 850 was certainly a looker, and I’m glad you got to live with a car you’d been lusting after for nearly 20 years, even if it didn’t fully live up to your expectations. The E36 touring is certainly a much more entertaining car to drive. I’m quite a fan of any BMW wagon, especially one with a stick!
Just a few of the 850s I’ve recently seen and felt the desire to photograph. Not bad for 20-something year old cars here in this climate!
Brendan,
Don’t forget Vermont. As a native of the Green Mountain State, I can attest that Vermonters do love their Volvos as well. Whenever I go home each summer, I am amazed at the number of 850s and 70 Series cars (and to a lesser extent, 240s) that are still on the road, when other cars of their vintage would have been retired due to rusting out.
I once knew an individual in Chittenden County, VT (Burlington, salt country) who bought a 1996 850 new and which had the relatively rare M56 5-speed manual. When it reached 10 years old, it already had close to 200k on it and despite numerous offers to sell, he wouldn’t part with it. Last I knew, he was still driving it with close to 300k.
I´ve seen only another 850 R, a red manual wagon, and a couple of T-5R, both cream yellow. 850s sold well in Spain, relatively speaking, and despite been expensive cars in the ´90s, when people couldn´t finance a car to 120 month payments…and there are still quite a few around.
Yes, in the end I have to admit my “dream car” didn´t meet expectations fully, but which dream car fullfils them?
A Portuguese fellow from the Volvo forum wanted a yellow T-5R, and it was bought in Spain and still sports Spanish plates…
A sizeable amount of “spanish” T-5R and R are now in other countries…their owners sold them to another european Volvo enthusiasts. Our climate generally means less rust, that´s the main attractive.
Volvo has been designing drop dead gorgeous alloys for 20 years now. They almost cannot make a wrong move.
I have lusted after this particular car for a long time. Perfect blend of understatement and excitement. I would take the cream yellow color, though.
A friend of a friend in high school got a hand-me-down from his mother, in the form of a pearl white 850 T5 with dark gunmetal alloys as his first car. I was greener than this 850R with envy.
They also make the best seats.
Great looking car, blue Volvos are my favorite.
Although it’s actually closer to the current bland rat-fur-grey interiors than to anything resembling real COLOR (as I sit in my old Taurus with a blue interior), I like this one. It’s lighter, airier look is accentualed by the seats and lower dash being lighter in tone than the top of the dash. The lighter shade of wood trim goes right along with the rest. It’s less like a cave, more like a bright room.
I have always had a soft spot for the Volvo Rs. I remember when the 850 T5-R came out, I read every review about it. I was smitten. The R wagons had been a ‘dream car’ of mine for a long time, but it always remained on the back burner. At the time I could afford one, I was into convertibles instead and had a couple of Mustangs. An 850 R or V70 R would make a nice compliment to my Magnum.
Your’s was very beautiful, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen one in that color. It’s gorgeous.
Ah, a welcome reminder of my old 850 Turbo wagon. Loved that car for long trips; great seats, nice handling. It certainly did suffer from rattles and squeaks, though. I never knew the dashboard supports were an issue, but it explains a lot. Still, fond if noisy memories.
While I wasn’t too wild about them when they were new, I’ve come to appreciate it more and more with time. Yours was a particularly attractive example.
The two people I knew who had 850s/S70s experienced repeated, expensive failures with them. I recall the transmission on one and then the other one had to be taken back to the dealer several times for software updates (?) and the throttle body recall, and I think a battery cable went out, which I didn’t know was possible, and it cost like $900. The last time I saw it a few years ago it was blowing blue smoke out of the tailpipe and I told the owner she needed a new car and it was replaced by a Hyundai Sonata. I remember looking at the V70s in ’01 and the slightly used ones at the dealer were breaking. I test drove one which had noticeable CV joint problems and another one had suspension issues.
Not as solid as the RWD predecessors, but oddly, I still see a lot of them running around, like the Northstar Devilles.
In Europe 850s and S/V70s had a good reliability record but they´re not cheap to fix them when they go wrong, mainly because a lot of parts have to be bought at the dealer, and prices are high.
Curiously my father bought new a 940 with the B230FK engine (low pressure turbo) and it wasn´t too dependable; but given the way my father treats his cars, that wasn´t a surprise. And the 940 drove like a truck, with ponderous handling; the 850 felt like a go-kart in comparison.
Ditto for P2 cars. In Europe they have a good reliability record, but expensive parts. Heck, I ride a lot of times in an 1999 S80 diesel which has been a great car for the owner and a flawless cruiser. Mileage? Already did nearly 600,000 miles! Yup!
Holy cow.
Reading a magazine, loving the car and buying the ACTUAL car years later is something indescribable… Glad you’ve enjoyed your R.
Kudos from a Volvo guy.
Yes, that´s really a coincidence…
In those years I liked the Jaguar XJR X300, too…shoud I buy this one? (check the number plates and compare with the picture)
http://www.milanuncios.com/jaguar-de-segunda-mano/jaguar-xjr-supercharged-219355769.htm
That’s insane.
I think I’ll start digging my 2004-current Portuguese collection to see if I ever find one for sale!
About the Jag – QOTD?
I still remember Road and Track’s headline in their 1992 New Cars issue when they reviewed the first of these cars – “This is not your Uncle Olaf’s Volvo”. I got a chance to ride in one in Jamaica in 1995 and was amazed at how roomy it was.
Jealous…the 850R is on my Top Ten Volvos list, and if I’m not mistaken, the turquoise color is VERY rare for the R. I’ve certainly never seen one in person, only yellow/red/black. Beautiful interior too–I can imagine it was hard to keep clean, but the light color with birch trim is quite attractive and, well, Swedish-looking!
Makes me want to get my Volvo back on the road…weather will soon be warm enough to work on it comfortably again…
If I remember correctly, the R was available in red, black, dark green, white, dark gray and turquoise. The T-5R, in cream yellow, black and dark green. It seems white was the rarest in Europe, most of them went to U.S. Probably turquoise was the second rarest, and I think it wasn´t available in U.S.
Strange timing! Just yesterday, I started daily-driving my 1998 S70 T5, modified by the previous owner to have the equivalent performance of this car. I’m enjoying it very much, as it has been a long 17 years since I have owned a vehicle with the power-to-weight ratio that mine has. Drives like normal off-boost, but runs like a scalded cat when you get into the turbo, to the point of wheelspin on anything but perfectly-dry pavement.
And I like the boxy look as it really stands out among a sea of rounded vehicles nowadays. Visibility out of the sides and rear is excellent of course.
I have two ’96 850’s owned since new, a stripper 850 sedan and a loaded R wagon. Lots of reasons to like these cars: visibility, versatility, comfort, space utilization, handling. Volvo nailed the corrosion control on these – 21 years and zero rust. The R is fast, especially with a few ipd upgrades, but the 850 (a three-pedal car) is very tossable and fun to drive. Gas mileage is ok but not to be boasted about. The downsides are that Volvo went eco-conscious in their construction, so a lot of the adhesives and connectors lack durability (neither car has an intact headliner, and new ones are crazy expensive). The other hitch is that when they break, it’s big bucks. It is for this reason that if you see one on the road, it’s because someone loves it, probably a little irrationally.