Don't give your insurance company the car! Maintain salvage rights and have the rear end replaced or pulled out and restore Knud to the road. The insurance company just wants Knud's parts for other 850s where the owner won't accept being cashed out or for their friends in the mob dominated scrap industry to make huge profits on your tragedy. Also get an attorney and sue the jerk who hit you for mental derest --- surely your under a great deal of stress since he killed Knud a family member? There are shops that will pull your Knud out and/or weld the back end of another 850 to it. Get Hemmings Motor News and start calling around. The new Volvo's my mechanic tells me are expensive pieces of crap.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I can sympathize as my beloved 940 was rear-ended by an SUV last August and ended up looking a lot like Knud.

I can tell you this about my experience:

My insurance company paid top dollar--more than I could ever have sold my 940 for--since the leather, paint, tires, dash, carpets, etc. were primo. But the approx. 7K I received did not cover the cost of an in kind replacement. I'd been planning to keep my 940 for several more years since it had been superbly maintained and had only 117K miles on it (I'd had it eight years), however, that wasn't possible.

I, too, considered a Toyota, but they didn't cheer me a bit. I love European cars and wanted something as nice as my 940. I put in an order with a fellow who frequents auctions, but miraculously, I found my "new" car at the dealer's where I'd bought the old one. No, I didn't get a bargain--they budged very little on the price for Guinevere, who'd been brought to the lot that very morning. She had all her maintenance records.

I decided on her because inside and out she looked like she'd come off the showroom floor. Leather, dash, carpets, paint, dash, everything perfect. The cleanest engine I ever saw, 37K original miles, immaculate trunk with full-size spare, premium sound radio/CD/cassette, winter package, great AC, sunroof, 4 airbags. In short, loaded and everything worked. (Oh, I had to have the wire to the driver's side seat heater reworked and I had a new timing belt put on and a tranny flush).

Just took her to Eastern Arizona and back. She burned no oil, averaged 25 mpg and was the most comfortable car I've ever traveled in.

Pay the money and get a good 850. It'll be worth it in the long run.

Suzanne

Sorry to hear of your loss. I can commiserate with you after having my 245GL been rear-ended. Twice! Both times "written off" by insurance companies but I refused to part with her and had her fixed. I ended up out of pocket a couple hundred but finding another quite like her seemed improbable; an 83 245 GL with manual; M46 and overdrive. So I kept her.

I believe you'll have a better chance of replacing yours than I did, as yours is a more recent model there should be more to choose from. Good luck in the search.