[145estate]

For sale is my beautiful c1970 vintage Volvo 145 de luxe estate car fitted with a manual gearbox with factory overdrive.

The car comes with it’s original service book which has been stamped up to date. Also included is a folder of invoices totally thousands of pounds, old mots/ brochures/handbooks/lists of jobs done/handwritten lists etc documenting its life.

For most of its life it lived between just two owners in Norwich, they both cherished the car and maintained properly through their ownership as paperwork/history proves.

The next owner whom I bought the car from, owns a classic car business in London ( for many years he’s bought/sold/stored classic cars, Ferrari/Porsche/ Citroen /Bentley etc) he actually ran this car as his preferred daily commuting between London and Southend on a daily basis.

I bought the car off him approx 2 years ago to use as a runaround here in London as I’d always admire the model.

Under his ownership the car had a thorough body/engine going over to include engine rebuilt/unleaded head/electronic ignition/clutch and various other jobs to bring it up to modern standards etc.

My reason for selling is I’m moving out of London and it will be excess to requirements where I’m going ( please also note I have recently sold my 1976 porsche 911 and only yesterday my BMW Alpina B3… yes a very sad turn of events indeed, but I’ve been lucky enough to have owned some wonderful cars during my lifetime so I can’t complain.

On to the car, I will try and give an honest appraisal of how it looks and drives, please note this is only my opinion I am not a mechanic or expert, so I suggest you view and make your own judgement etc.

Bodily the car is very straight, there are no large dents or areas of filler etc, all the wheel arches are solid and rust/bubble free…the doors/tailgate are also solid so are the cills… the Binet is also corrosion free and the engine bay is immaculate with no corrosion to top mounts/scuttle etc… the paint is bright and generally blemish free but please bear in mind the car is over 50 years old… there is one area and the drivers rear just by the indicator lens which is a series of scratches ( caused by my neighbour closing his garage door onto it) apart from that area it’s very clean, the bright work/fittings are all genuine and present there are no pieces of trim missing or broken, all the lights etc work.

The interior is immaculate exclude the drivers seat which has a rip in it which will need recovering. The other seats particularly the rears look like that haven’t been sat on. The carpets are all excellent and original… the dashboard is excellent as are all the switches/knobs everything is present, all door/lock furniture again is present all windows open and close correctly all doors lock correctly… the interior windscreen plastic panel that sits on the dash needs securing properly but that’s about it… the clock works but looses time after a few days… all temp/fuel/speedometer work correctly so does the manual choke.

It comes with two sets of wheels, one original the others ( which they’re on and pictured) I believe to be from a Peugeot 405 ( I can ask previous owner to confirm) tyres are Avon.

Mechanically the car benefits from modern updates as stated earlier, it starts immediately on the choke. On the road the car feels stable and relaxed and easily keeps up with modern traffic… the brakes are excellent too and the heater/fan works as it should. Overdrive works correctly also… it’s very easy to drive although there’s no power steering so you do need some effort when parking.

Things to do : firstly the car is absolutely fine to use as is it starts and stops etc… going forward : sometimes it makes a crunching noise when selecting reverse ( seems to go in ok) and occasionally when it can be hard to select a gear ( it had a clutch fitted in 2020 as I said I’m not a mechanic but felt I should mention this (any Volvo guru’s out there?).
Secondly I’ve oticed recently some water ingress to the passenger glovebox/footwell not sure if door rubbers of windscreen tbh but agai thought I’d mention it, that’s about all I can remember for now please feel free to ask any questions.

In summary, this is a beautiful example of a very rare Swedish classic and certainly the nicest and most original example I’ve ever seen. Two years ago I paid a large amount of money for this car, I’ve spent money on it maintaining it service items etc ( bills from Brookhouse to prove) I would like to think I would get my money back, but who knows… I guess things are worth what people are willing to pay

I’ve had many cars over the years some very fast and exotic but this particular car has given me lots of pleasure and has always garnered a fun friendly reaction when people see it, it seems to evoke a certain time when people were growing up and going on family trips etc .. anyway I’m rambling on now.. don’t hesitate to ask questions etc… viewings available but I’m not in London very often but can meet if serious.
Thanks