I was just thinking about the upgrades made to our bottom of the line chromeless 740 sedan, and what the car looks like now. Matching ipd cupholders on the doors, top of the line polar white NZ sheepskins, weather tech floor mats and for the outside, chromed wheel arches and Borbet type E wheels. Really about $1500 worth of considered upgrades. For a box on a box Volvo, the car looks very presentable for its age. It is treated to an oil change every 3500 miles and otherwise is serviced by the book and while the odometer reads 116k we believe it has actually travelled another 10k with the odometer and speedometer not working, an intermitteant problem the last 4 years or so.

The little 114 hp engine doesn't let the car climb steep hills too readily, but floored it does eventually get you there, though it is a dog compared to our Mercedes and the 2001 C70 turbo we used to have. The car gives a feeling that with reasonable care it will last us forever, even though it is only waxed once or twice a year and lives outside in San Francisco fog all year. It suffers the abuse and indignities of city driving though the turning radius is a delight in tight quarters, you can always make a real fast U turn to grab that elusive parking space that opened up, and it has truly suffered abuse when wife.gov drove it for 9 miles with no water in the engine, which even our mechanic believed would have wrecked the motor or blown the head gasket at least, but such did not occur. 30k later and the faithful 740 is still rolling. It makes the Mercedes seem very fussy and cantankerous, and expensive to keep, by comparison. And such is probably the case in fact. The 740 was our first Volvo, acquired when we went to a Volvo dealer and said we would like to look at a Volvo and blindly pointed to this one as an example, and we wound up buying it. The Volvo dealer acquired it at the Phoenix Arizona auto auction where Volvo NA got rid of it, it was an off lease vehicle owned by a Houston stockbroker. My wife commutes 100 miles a day in the car, and when she is away I use it for errands in the city of San Francisco. It is truly a car for all seasons. It feels, like the Mercedes, at 11 years old, just barely broken in nicely.

Jim
'91 740 sedan
'91 Mercedes 560SEC coupe