850R Estate on Ebay
 

Just spotted this on Fleabay. Apologies if it’s been posted before.

Might interest someone?


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313162625761

Valley cars and classics (I have no links to them) import JDM cars - they have (or at least had) a virtually identical car listed for a much more reasonable £7,250. It looks to be in the same condition, with fewer miles but with what look to be a few mods under the bonnet. Red would certainly be my favoured choice of colour (mine happens to be metallic grey!).

Mmm, just down the road from me. Interesting.

I've got a red one that might come up for sale, genuine UK car for about the same money, nobody seems to want imported ones which is why they sit on eBay for a very long time, there's a red 850R saloon on there that's been on for two years! These things are hard to price aswell. They are no longer cheap.

Collectors generally prefer the imported 850's as they tend to have lower mileage and can sometimes be found in super unrestored condition. Jay Kay (Jamiroquai) sold his imported 850R last year for £14000, plus fees I assume. A lot of import dealers mistakenly think 850R's have a similar value to a T-5R and price them too high. Some also don't take condition into account and generally price similar mileage imported 850R's at the same level, despite being different grades. It's actually been the exceptional low mileage imported 850's sold by specialist marque dealers to collectors over the last couple of years that's helped push up values of all 850s.

Are you saying that the 850 T-5R is of greater value than an 850R?

I tried to buy that 854R before I bought my S70 T5 - I offered him £4k expecting a counter offer, but he insisted on £6k take it or leave it.

Sad really, as that was almost my perfect spec - red saloon, with the beige interior and birch wood trim. It was an auto which was the only detriment - if it had been a manual then I probably would have taken out a loan to get it, but I was only interested in a manual gearbox this time.

Re the T5-R vs 850R valuation/desirability, the T5-Rs were genuinely limited editions - only 500 of each colour were made IIRC, whereas the 850R was not a limited edition so there are many more of them about. The most desirable is the iconic Gull Yellow T5-R estate of course.

I did not realise that. I was told that the 850R is the highest spec/performance, then it went 850 T-5R then 850 T-5.

Horses for courses and all that.

The 850R would arguably be the "better" car. But not really enough to really make any difference. More of them about so lower prices too. For something to just run about in or play with that's probably the better option right now.

For collectors, the T5-R is a limited run special edition with the link to the BTCC campaign. The 850R is "just another Volvo". Yellow worth more than green worth more than black. Estate worth more than saloon. Genuine manual worth most of all.

Imports tend to be low miles, well kept, and rust free.

Where UK cars tend to have been to the moon and back over 25 years of salt encrusted winter roads.

Obviously generalising there but that's the gist of it.

As for "true" market values that's almost impossible to tell. But the rarer models will only get rarer. Even more so cars that don't have intergalactic miles, rust, or tuned and raced to death.

At the end of the day something is worth exactly what someone else actually paid. Regardless whether others think they should have got it for 20p ;)

Nicely put. Love the yellow, used to be one around here in the 90's, loved it then, would love it now.