Seriously?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Moomoo

Still a good truck though chap!

The Skoda Superb? Yes indeed; I've owned it from new (8 years and 70,000 miles ago) and it has been pretty well faultless. It does 50 MPG, costs £30/year to tax and can carry 5 people plus Bob (the dog) whilst towing a trailer full of motorbikes :-)

[loki_the_glt]

I wonder if the 240GLT estate has been given some Torslanda bits - the alloys and roof bars are both Tors' fitments - while the trim has been, IMO, downgraded from leather to velour?
But a nice car all the same and I would have been tempted if I didn't already have too many cars for the available storage space.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt

I wonder if the 240GLT estate has been given some Torslanda bits - the alloys and roof bars are both Tors' fitments - while the trim has been, IMO, downgraded from leather to velour?
But a nice car all the same and I would have been tempted if I didn't already have too many cars for the available storage space.

It would appear from this 1980 Volvo brochure that both leather and plush interiors were offered for the GLE, so perhaps the plush is the original (although it might have been an odd decision to opt for it instead of leather on a new car in 1987):



PS. I'm rather assuming GLE is the same as the later GLT model.

[loki_the_glt]

Originally Posted by Othen

It would appear from this 1980 Volvo brochure that both leather and plush interiors were offered for the GLE, so perhaps the plush is the original (although it might have been an odd decision to opt for it instead of leather on a new car in 1987):



PS. I'm rather assuming GLE is the same as the later GLT model.

From launch the GLT had leather as its default trim; if you wanted velour you had to specify it as "delete option", but I don't know if there was a rebate. The GLE was more luxurious than the GLT (Executive vs. Touring perhaps?) with the latter having stiffer dampers. By the time of this GLT's build leather would have been standard on it, with anything else requiring intervention at ordering time.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt

From launch the GLT had leather as its default trim; if you wanted velour you had to specify it as "delete option", but I don't know if there was a rebate. The GLE was more luxurious than the GLT (Executive vs. Touring perhaps?) with the latter having stiffer dampers. By the time of this GLT's build leather would have been standard on it, with anything else requiring intervention at ordering time.

Thank you for that Loki.

It just seemed to me odd that someone might have replaced the leather interior of a GLT with the plush one from a GL as that would have been quite a time consuming and expensive thing to do. I suppose it is possible that the original leather interior might have been in very poor order indeed, and perhaps an owner had a donor car with some good plush seats (with the wheels and roof bars as well)?

The alternative explanation is that the first owner specified a delete option and preferred the plush seats.

Neither seems all that plausible, but I suppose one of them must be what happened.

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Thank you for that Loki.

It just seemed to me odd that someone might have replaced the leather interior of a GLT with the plush one from a GL as that would have been quite a time consuming and expensive thing to do. I suppose it is possible that the original leather interior might have been in very poor order indeed, and perhaps an owner had a donor car with some good plush seats (with the wheels and roof bars as well)?

The alternative explanation is that the first owner specified a delete option and preferred the plush seats.

Neither seems all that plausible, but I suppose one of them must be what happened.

Alan

Look through all the pics in the listing Alan. In the load area, the trim is grey. From the rear seats forwards, it's tan including the cente console!

The seats and door cards have been changed and so have the carpets - easy enough to change the carpets while the seats and console are out.

The original spec as Alf says would be leather (probably black or maybe grey) and the cente console would have matched the seats and door cards, whether they were grey or black.

Also the original wheels would have been Virgos, as already pointed out it has Torslanda and/or another model (SE perhaps?) wheels and roof bars. I suspect someone has done a mix'n'match, i wouldn't have chosen tan for certain but grey would have worked quite well.

The original fit in the back of my 760 (1988 so only a year newer) was black leather seats, carpet, headlining and carpets from the C pillar forwards. Behind that it's dark grey - maybe my eyesight is seeing the rest of the original as black when it's dark grey but i now have mid-grey carpets and headliner - the old headliner fell apart on removal but it's a lot less oppressive in there with the lighter carpet and headliner.
This may have been a consideration when the pervious owner of that GLT changed things.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Look through all the pics in the listing Alan. In the load area, the trim is grey. From the rear seats forwards, it's tan including the cente console!

The seats and door cards have been changed and so have the carpets - easy enough to change the carpets while the seats and console are out.

The original spec as Alf says would be leather (probably black or maybe grey) and the cente console would have matched the seats and door cards, whether they were grey or black.

.

... or maybe someone changed the load area trim (only) from tan to grey Dave? :-)

I'm just musing, you are probably right, but we may never know :-)

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

... or maybe someone changed the load area trim (only) from tan to grey Dave? :-)

I'm just musing, you are probably right, but we may never know :-)

Alan

I'm pretty certain Volvo never paired tan interior with the dark grey body colour Alan, somewhere on here i belive there is a chart that specifies all of this but i don't know where.

Also human nature comes into play - people will change the things that offend their eyes the most, in other words where they sit. Also there's evidence the gear lever knob has been moved if not at least removed and replaced.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

I'm pretty certain Volvo never paired tan interior with the dark grey body colour Alan, somewhere on here i belive there is a chart that specifies all of this but i don't know where.

Also human nature comes into play - people will change the things that offend their eyes the most, in other words where they sit. Also there's evidence the gear lever knob has been moved if not at least removed and replaced.

... I wasn't being very serious there Dave. I think you are probably right and the interior may well have been changed.

I wonder why that happened some time in the past 43 years though. Someone took out the leather seats and went to all the trouble of changing the door cards and so on in order to fit some plush seats from a GL (or similar). The leather seats must have been in a horrible state to justify a whole interior change, so what caused that? Was there a fire, did the motor car get submerged at high tide, has it really done 600,000 miles and got worn out by being sat on?

We probably won't ever find out the answer, but it is interesting. I still like the grey car, and if I didn't already have the RB then I might have bought it.

:-) Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

... I wasn't being very serious there Dave. I think you are probably right and the interior may well have been changed.

I wonder why that happened some time in the past 43 years though. Someone took out the leather seats and went to all the trouble of changing the door cards and so on in order to fit some plush seats from a GL (or similar). The leather seats must have been in a horrible state to justify a whole interior change, so what caused that? Was there a fire, did the motor car get submerged at high tide, has it really done 600,000 miles and got worn out by being sat on?

We probably won't ever find out the answer, but it is interesting. I still like the grey car, and if I didn't already have the RB then I might have bought it.

:-) Alan

I suspect a much more prosaic reason Alan. The owner of the grey beastie was short on funds and a friend/acquaintance liked his leather interior so a deal was struck to give him some money and a velour interior from a lesser model in exchange for the leather one. Two happy drivers, two non-original Volvos.