H572 DGS
1990 Volvo 440GL
Bought: May 2000 for £900, 95,000 miles
Sold: May 2000 for £940, 95,000 miles (driven twice!)

I'm obviously a sucker for Volvos. No, I'm actually a sucker for a good deal. I think the technical term for this is pikey. Anyway, I wasn't even looking for a car when I picked up the Freeads one Wednesday while on holiday and noticed a Volvo 440 for sale in the "Cars Under £1000" section. I'd never seen a 440 for sale under a grand before, so went off and had a look. It looked a little shabby, with a bit of rust on the driver's door and some missing trim, but drove OK and had full Volvo service history, so of course I bought it. Well, it was a bargain, right? They were booking at just over 2 grand in Parker's at the time, so I thought I'd made the sale of the century.

Anyhow, I think I'd had it a day when my mum bought it off me for my brother to use! Fair enough, I preferred driving the Prelude anyway. Volvo 440s are very safe and comfortable, but hard work to drive without power steering, heavy on fuel and make a lot of noise thanks to the Renault engine. Cheap to insure, though. Chris stuck in a Sony Minidisc player, covered the seats in cigarette burns and eventually managed to crease the entire driver's side with the help of a Rover 820, but the thing still carried on going for another three years and 25,000 miles with only a recurring problem with the fuel line - it either leaked or got clogged up. Tough cars, Volvos - even crappy Dutch ones. It wasn't even that rusty at the end either. However, it wouldn't stop stinking of petrol and overheating, so my brother bought an Audi and sold the Volvo to the window cleaner for £100!

Return to the car page.