Like Vincent Van Gogh, as we speak’s Good Value or No Cube Volvo was much less appreciated throughout its manufacturing run than in later years. Let’s see how appreciative we could be about this tidy instance’s value.
With an estimated 48 million gamers and counting, Pickleball is the fastest-growing participation sport in America. I feel most of us, nonetheless, would quite spend our off-hours on the autocross or on a monitor day. Motorsports, in spite of everything, is way much less taxing on the Achilles tendons and rotator cuffs. The 1985 Porsche 944 we checked out yesterday was touted in its advert as being a turn-key monitor automobile. Questions abounded about simply how a lot monitor time—and therefore put on—it had already seen, and that made its $12,500 price ticket a bit an excessive amount of to swallow for a lot of. The consequence was a 57 % No Cube loss.
Porsche and sports activities vehicles go collectively like COVID and a cough, however once you consider Volvo and sporty coupes, there’s just about just one place you’re thoughts can go: the P1800 and its later iteration, the 1800ES.
Inbuilt each swoopy coupe and remarkably good-looking two-door wagon kinds, the sportiest Volvo hit the market in 1961 and solely went out of manufacturing in 1973 as a consequence of impending security and emissions laws in its largest market, America. In complete, Volvo constructed about 48,000 of the vehicles, with solely slightly over 8,000 of these being the Swan Track 1800ES wagons. Since then, collectors and Volvo followers alike have coveted these long-roof fashions.
This 1972 1800ES seems to be nice within the images, though its vendor describes it as 5-10-foot automobile as a consequence of some imperfections in its cherry-red paint. From the manufacturing facility, the two-liter B20 4 beneath the hood made 125 horsepower with its Bosch D-Jetronic gasoline injection. In response to the advert, on this automobile, that old-school injection has been supplanted by a extra fashionable Megasquirt system. That ought to enhance each the reliability and driveability so long as it’s dialed in accurately.
Behind that upgraded engine sits Volvo’s M41 four-speed guide with the fascinating Laycock de Normanville overdrive. Varied suspension and supporting {hardware} have additionally been changed or upgraded, and the automobile purrs by an IPD exhaust. Curiously, the advert touts the set up of latest Michelin tires in 2022 and claims the automobile has solely achieved 800 miles since.
In complete, there are 147,500 miles on the automobile, and the inside reveals none of these. The black vinyl upholstery is paired with dusty-red carpet and manufacturing facility fake woodgrain on the sprint. This can be a automobile of a sure age, so every thing in it’s guide, and people searching for the sweat-reducing joys of A/C ought to look elsewhere. On the plus facet, there are vent wings in each doorways.
The 1800ES’s chef’s kiss, although, is its all-glass rear hatch. Bracketed by chrome-topped fender fins, that’s simply as dramatic as we speak as when it first debuted. On this automobile, that hatch seems to be to be in nice form, though the carpet beneath it seems to have pale as a consequence of an extra of solar.
That’s only a minor quibble and one which’s acceptable if the vendor’s objective of creating the automobile “the last word driver, not a concours winner” is to be believed. A clear title rounds out the automobile’s bona fides, though the vendor notes that it’s being bought with a invoice of sale since Maine, the place the automobile is positioned, exempts vehicles 25 years or older from needing a title for switch.
With that out of the best way, let’s now think about this Volvo’s $21,500 asking value. That will get a brand new proprietor a stable driver and one which could possibly be loved with out requiring any instant aesthetic updates.
However is {that a} honest value for the automobile because it sits? What’s your tackle this Volvo and that $21,500 asking? Is that an on-target value for this capturing brake? Or is that an excessive amount of for this wagon to haul?
You determine!
Portland, Maine, Craigslist, or go right here if the advert disappears.
H/T to FauxShizzle for the hookup!
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