The £30k was a figure i arrived at as a guesstimate John, based on the fact my 1994 Rover Sterling was £30k new and the Coupe i owned (1995) was £34k new, all a similar sort of time and class of vehicle, aimed at the executive sector of the market.
It was more to illustrate my point than a factual statement about the new cost of a Volvo.
When i was 18, i had a 144 auto, a friend had an 850 Mini. In 6 months it cost him more just in tyres than it cost me for everything on my Volvo (including tax, insurance, fuel etc) because the tyres wore out so quickly because they had to rotate a lot more for the same distance than the Volvo ones did.
When we added my friends fuel costs in, i was really shocked! The Mini drank more than my Volvo!
We were covering similar mileages each week despite living and working in different locations and doing our day release in different colleges.
So no, you wouldn't want to run a 740 for the same cost as a Mini!
Granted these are all ownership costs but to be fair, the Volvo was still cheaper!