Ten years’ worth of CC (over 16,500 posts), yet there are still quite a few gaps – especially regarding the non-American metal – in the impressive compendium of global automotive knowledge we’ve all been participating in all this time. I made my modest contributions towards this goal and hope to be able to find and write up more for 2021, but this post is most definitely not filling any kind of gap.
We’ve seen the Volvo 780 before. We have seen it plenty of times and in a lot of detail. Brendan Saur caught three and wrote two posts about them, including a desirable Turbo. Tom Klockau wrote a long post about the 780 as well. And there is a very good older COAL post, as well. (Links to all of these posts are at the end of the one you’re reading now, as per usual.)
So there’s nothing new here. This is a well-known quantity, a familiar face, a chip off the old cube. Move along, folks, just take a couple pictures if you must. Really, just a couple? Go on then, maybe just a few more.
The fact remains: only about 8000 of these were put together by Bertone between 1985 and 1990. This is an old, rare and highly collectible Volvo. And I had just found one – in utterly mint condition, as per usual – just sitting there, in the backlot of a local Volvo dealership, no less. You can see the bind I was in.
How could I pass up a Bertone-built classic coupé? It’s not like one just bumps into these on a daily basis anywhere, much less in Japan. No, there were no two ways about it. I was just going to have to bite the bullet, take the bull by the horn and grasp the nettle all in on go and write up a completely vacuous post.
There was nothing left to be said about these Volvos that wasn’t said and re-stated before, so one just had to accept that fact, put it behind and move on. Possibly even write an additional sentence in a futile attempt to make something vaguely paragraph-sized. It was a stretch, but the options were limited.
I had nothing to go on. No personal history or experience about these cars, no compelling story on how I came upon its discovery, no hint as to what engine lay within – like a blind man in an orgy, I was going to have to feel my way out.
The biggest issue, which is not usually such a problem, was that this damn car was photogenic as hell. I’m not generally too crazy about rectilinear ‘80s styling – I tend to think right angles were a wrong turn – but this one was not designed by a bunch of white-coated nerds using IBMs. This actually looks very nice, like a Maserati Biturbo that had corrective surgery and was then left out in the sun a bit too long.
So because I had all these nice photos of this relatively-rare-in-the-wild-but-not-on-CC 35-year-old Volvo, I was left with far more illustration than any text I could conceivable come up with. Makes things lopsided, and that’s just not good enough. But how lyrical can a guy wax about a square Volvo before going around in circles?
Even the interior, which looks so clean one could eat reindeer meatballs in lingonberry sauce right off it, is both impossible to dislike and hard to get excited about. It’s a strange combination, but one that Scandinavians have perfected to a fine art (and even finer literature). Norwegian Wood inlays are quite lovely, though.
Same story in the rear quarters – looks like a time-capsule straight from the Olof Palme era. Just as mysterious, too. How did this Volvo go through the years seemingly without a trace? Not the first time I’ve seen this phenomenon in Japan, but it never fails to amaze.
In summation (thank God), please accept my apologies if you thought this post would edify you in any shape of form about the Volvo 780. That particular wheel, as can be seen in the “related posts” section below, has been reinvented three times already. Nobody needs a full-size spare any more.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1990 Volvo 780 Turbo Coupe – An Exotic Automobile For A Practical Consumer, by Brendan Saur
Curbside Classics: Pair of 1989 & 1990 Volvo 780 Coupes – What Are The Odds I Was Driving A 2-Door Volvo When I Captured This?, by Brendan Saur
Curbside Classic: 1989 Volvo 780 – Rectilinear Luxury By Bertone, by Tom Klockau
COAL: 1988 Volvo 780 Bertone – The Italian Swede, by Chris M.
This car is definitely more attractive than its predecessor. That is a nice color combination for it too. I wouldn’t mind having it in my garage.
It’s missing the excitement and drama of the earlier Bertone Volvo coupe. /sarc
And the vinyl roof hiding the hatchet scars.
Bertone built a box, its a very tidy box though as tidy as what Japanese owned cars usually look like, its hard to tell sometimes if they were ever driven except for the numbers on the odometer, The FReight;iner I was driving broke down amongst some used car lots recently so for 6 hours until a mechanic revived it I had little to do but wander used car lots fresh imports actually look like new cars inside doesnt matter what brand or model the previous owners kept them immaculate, no wonder people like to buy them here especially upscale things like BMW front lawns around south Auckland are like a breeding ground for that brand, they are literally everywhere ex JDM and dead.
In 1983, I went down to the local Volvo dealership after becoming more successful. These looked much better than the blocky 240, had pretty generous room, and were best of all: safe. My ‘69 Club Wagon was traded in since my brother’s sons were being homeschooled at my house and I only needed to drive 3 other kids to school. Unfortunately, the sticker price of the Volvo wasn’t exactly desirable. Since the van was already traded in, I had to look in the ads. There was a new 6,000 dollar Buick LeSabre sedan. I wonder why that tan Buick had such a low price. The painfully slow V6 explained it when I test drove it.
In this edition, Dr Tatra allows the pictures tell a thousand words, in a thousand words, and The Reader is left in a cloud of unknowing.
Talking of mulberry bushes, that is a mighty lustrous color. It suits the times square. On a modern curve n’ slash jobbie, it wouldn’t work (and isn’t seen). It would still be better than the color of the Swedish Swede next to this Italian one, the former of which has the pallor of the recently deceased.
The 780 is an inexplicably nice-looking box set, and always worth a line or two, though if one may be so bold, might it politely be suggested that the utterance of same is improved enormously if they are in some way contrived to convey some content.
Otherwise, a very insightful post.
A looker in a great color. Japan is maybe the only place in the world where you could get your car worked on mechanically and not be concerned about an errant dirt or grease smudge getting on it, more likely it’ll be cleaner than it was when it went in. I don’t get it either, I think perhaps the rain there contains 5% cleaning solution as well as a spot-free drying additive as well. As proof I offer that I have never seen a carwash facility anywhere in Japan.
I lived in a Japanese city which hosted a chemical plant. The company always said the billows of smoke coming from said factory was steam.
All the cars in the area had the clear coat burned off.
When I was visiting Japan in the late 80s, I was surprised to see that many service stations included car wash facilities. So you may have just not noticed them.
BTW, having taken a bath at a youth hostel in Japan, and noticing that patrons were not allowed to use much water, I would imagine the typical Japanese car wash uses much less water than a U.S. car wash, and it is recycled somehow.
Yes, very likely I just didn’t notice, especially as I didn’t drive there and didn’t need to visit filling stations. Around here they recycle the water at carwashes as well.
I wonder if the Bertones were all left drivers? Someone must have really wanted it to live with that, and apparently its care reflects this- What a time capsule!
I found that driving a left driver in a left driving locality difficult. Lived in St.Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. They drive US federalized cars on the left side. Was down there a year and never got used to it. They were briefly a Brit Colony, then Danish before the US purchased them as a naval recoaling station for steamers.The winding back roads, town driving in narrow streets, and crowded parking lots all had their own unique challenges. And one would learn to have caution for confused tourists in rental Jeeps.
Some are lucky enough to have right driving second hand USPS Cherokees- and there are a handful of elderly postal delivery Jeeps and Land Rovers around, though. Caribbean charm. Every few years the politicians discuss changing it, but it never happens unlike Sweden(?).
What a gorgeous 780. Sometimes I think about what cars I’d own if I lived somewhere besides Northern California. What I’d drive in Palm Springs, Maine or Miami. I’d never thought about owning a Volvo (of which I’ve owned many) in Japan but I love this idea. I’d always thought, kei car or maybe an art car 911, but a Volvo 780… you’ve widened my mind and I like it.
Oh my, but you describe the CC author’s dilemma perfectly. When you see THE CAR – one that is such a perfect specimen of the genre, you simply must photograph it. I think it operates as a corollary to the CC Effect. Must. Get. Out. Of. The. Car. And. Shoot. It. And photos safely in your device of choice, you have absolutely nothing to say about it.
Probably 8 years ago I was given an up close and personal tour of a freshly restored split window Corvette. Red, 327, 4 speed, the works. I even got a ride in it. I still need to write it up, but fortunately others have done the dirty work of writing something substantive about the cars. But now you have used the only angle I had to work with. 🙂
What a wonderful find and in all the places, jolly well done, sir.
We Brits never got these officially imported as they were all left hand drive with the majority heading over to the States (you lucky devils) and the rest sprinkled around Europe. I’ve only ever seen one at Techno Classica Essen which started my interest in these (to me) unknown machines. This one
https://imgur.com/a/3w54SUT
For anyone interested, I wrote a piece about the 780 on a website I contribute to as I like the car so much: https://driventowrite.com/2021/02/11/1985-volvo-780-es-profile/
And for someone even more interested, head over to http://www.780coupe.com
Davies knows one or two items regarding these beautiful cars…
The interior looks like it is direct from the day the car was made! That´s astonishing.
You have to like this car. It´s rare, it´s characterful, it´s good and it looks exellent. And at the time it was not appreciated. Everything you need for a good CC car!
When I was living in Japan I was always surprised at how many really cool cars I saw.
My Japanese buddy had a first generation Mini. He explained to me that in public, he had to be fastidious and conform to whatever the group was doing. Having a cool car was a form of free expression, something that is publicly very difficult to do in Japan.
I loved living in Japan. I have been back twice now and as soon as the covid stuff is over I’ll be heading there and to Korea, too.
I have no recollection of actually ever seeing one in the metal, but nominally it’s not my car.
But, like T87, I can see the temptation when it looks as good as this.
I have seen 1 or 2 of these cars ” in the metal “, both times while living in Memphis. Only ever seen them in black, and saw a turbo and non turbo example.
This is NOT equipped with the turbo, otherwise you would see a discreet badge on the right rear edge of the trunk lid.
1980s Reliant/Fairmont/Cavalier/Camry:
You all did it wrong.
THIS is boxy done correctly.
Perfect proportions; perfect details.
-And the color really knocks it out of the park.