Got myself an 850 GLT

[4x4]

Left home at 5;00 this morning in the XC90 and went south of Hadrian's Wall to collect my new to me 97 850 GLT in Silver Sand Metallic with 58k on the clock.

[BorderVolvo]

That looks VERY NICE !

[4x4]

Few interior pics

[turboboy]

That is a really nice car.

Impressed by the careful vacuumed pattern of the load area carpet :-)

You must be chuffed - well worth getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning for.

Enjoy.

[griston64]

Seen this on Ebay for a while. Looks really nice !

[amazondean]

I can see from the photos you have a special one there. One of those that needs looking after, as they are few and far between in that condition. It's a pity it doesn't have the cruise control though. That would be the icing on the cake!

[rowleray]

looks great!

[4x4]

My 850 will soon be 25 years old so bought it a 25th present. I'm not sure what the keyring was made to celebrate as the company Manhattan-Windsor that made it closed the doors back in 1998. Maybe made for the Silver Jubilee 240 model.





When my 850 was new it was bought through the Volvo Tourist and Diplomat Special Delivery sales scheme. These sales were offered to certain customers and as long as you fitted the criteria you could purchase a new Volvo whilst receiving a huge savings on the purchase price along with a few other perks.

The original owner of my car was a British Forces officer who was posted in Mönchengladbach which allowed the car to be bought through the Tourist & Diplomat Special Delivery scheme, it also allowed the car to be bought without paying the UK VAT.

When I spoke to the original owner's son who sold the car in 2019 to a used car dealer he told me he passed on 2x Tourist and Diplomat Special Delivery keyrings which were still unused in the original wrappers. Unfortunately these had went A.W.O.L. before the car came into my possession some 15 months later never to be seen again. The chap I bought the car from told me he never received the keyrings but he also told me he only received one key only to discover 4/5 months later he had received all 3 keys

There were several different Keyrings produced over the years and I’m unsure which is the correct one for 1997, they are also becoming hard to find so when one recently came up for sale I had to have it.





I have a feeling this would have been the keyring for 1997...
Can anyone confirm please?

[ITSv40]

As the silver key ring has 25 superimposed on a map of the UK, could it be celebrating 25 years of an official presence in the UK.

[4x4]

Part of the enjoyment for me of owing an older car is finding out about its journey from new to arriving into my possession. As cars get older it's nice to find and preserve the history for future custodians to enjoy and add to. My previous 1947 car which I bought in Australia came with no history except the name of the previous owner and a couple of pictures and with a lot of research I compiled an extensive folder starting with it being built in Solihull then shipped new to Sydney to being bought as a wreck in the 80s, to its body off restoration and eventually winning awards in Australia and the car now has the last 74 years of history which has been passed onto the new owner.

My 850 was originally bought by a Lt.Col in the British Army stationed in Germany. From my research the troops were know as the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). I decided that a BAOR grill badge would be a fitting tribute to the car and the original owner but after searching I have found there is no such badge. There are window stickers available but I didn't want to go down that route unless I had to so I had to think outside the box this time.

eBay provided the answer in the shape of an award given to the military for recreational sporting achievements and I bought one of the awards to experiment with.

My newly purchased award arrived today and I was disappointed to find that it wasn't the brass or bronze award I expected it to be. My plan had been to solder a couple of bolts to the rear to enable it to be fixed to the grill but as it was made from aluminium I had to compromise.

Hacksaw, file, drill, sandpaper and an hour's work and I now have what I presume to be the only BAOR grill badge in the UK.