Remember when Volvos were boxy and fast? Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe V70 R remembers. Let’s see if this hot box’s price makes it even more memorable.
The fusillade of comments on yesterday’s 1988 Toyota Camry AllTrac, complaining that it was ‘just a Camry’ and that it looked ‘too rusty’ proved a woeful point—that a number of you have joined the ranks of the SUV crowd.
Look, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some of my best friends are SUV owners. Hell, for all we know, my wife might even drive one.
Some of us however, aren’t ready to give up on other, less tall automotive options. For us, that Camry did not look too bland nor too great a sacrifice to the rust gods to save. And, at $2,900, it took home a 58-percent Nice Price win too.
You know, if anything is going to snap a former enthusiast out of the tippy-trippy SUV cult, it’s going to be this 2004 Volvo V70 R. Consider this, the car offers AWD, three row seating, and a longroof body. That’s like automotive methadone for SUV addicts.
Add to that a 300-horsepower turbocharged five cylinder engine, six speed manual gearbox and Öhlins multimode suspension and this wagon might make have them asking, S-U-who?
Volvo seems to be bringing its A game these days, however for a while there, after Ford and before their current Chinese owners got them back on track, that the company seemed to lose its way. This V70 R hails from before the fall and that makes it something of an enigma. It’s too old (14 years) to be considered newish, but that’s too young to generally consider being of restorable age. It sits there in that unenviable no man’s land of just being a ‘car of a certain age’ and one that’s got a lot of highly put-upon parts. As that’s the case, if you’re going to go for one of Volvo’s venerated performance wagons, you’re going to want to go for a good one.
This one seems to be pretty good. It comes in Titanium Grey Metallic over Nordkapp and rocks clean factory 17-inch Pegasus wheels. Paint looks serviceable here, and overall the car presents pretty well. That is until you get to the nose. There, like a witch’s warted schnoz, things turn a little south. There’s shunt damage to the grille surround, and a cracked headlamp cover that will require replacing of the whole unit. The hood seems undamaged and sports a clear bra. Unrelated to anything, I’d like to point out that think clear bras are a thing that should become more popular.
The interior shows some wear but no apparent tears. A nice feature here is the stowaway third row benchette that makes this wagon a seven seater. That of course, is as long as everyone’s chummy. Also, you won’t be taking anybody to any R rated movies in that back-back seat as it’s only for the smaller folk.
Another notable feature here is the six speed manual. Volvo sold 1,565 V70 R models in 2004, and of those only 541 carried the big stick. That’s attached to the 2.5-litre inline five which the factory claimed was good for 296-ponies, and looks totally badass in its blue cam cap.
How many of those ponies are left here? That’s a good question. The seller says that he is the car’s second owner, and that its first was meticulous about its maintenance. He claims to have kept that candle burning all the way up to the car’s current 150,000 miles.
Along the way the timing belt was done at 120K, and both cooling system and suspension have seen some work. The car already has had the resonator yanked, a mod to prevent an issue where the exhaust and driveshaft could become a little too intimate.
The car comes with an extra set of wheels and a roof rack. It also comes with a stern warning that the seller will ‘ignore all but serious buyers.’ That counts me out, seeing as I can’t pass up any groan-worthy pun. The rest of you however, should meet that criteria just fine.
If so, then it’s now time to consider this hot Volvo’s $7,999 price. Does that seem like a fair deal for the car as it’s presented in its ad? Or, for that much is this an R that’s not going to go far?
You decide!
San Francisco Bay Area Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to EdHelmsBakery for the hookup!
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