A very pretty yet very dusty Volvo 960 sedan, seen at a small car repair shop in north Beijing in 2016. The good Volvo was dirty and dusty with partially deflated tires, but overall in a fine shape. License plates are of Sichuan Province, some 1800 kilometers by road. That’s like a super market run in a Volvo, is it not?
Well, not really. I own a Volvo myself and nowadays they are as strong as any other car. But back in the day a Volvo really wasn’t all that good. My dad had a 240 and then a 240 wagon, and both were at the dealer for repairs a lot. One time, it even got so bad that the dealer felt sorry and gave us a 760 as a replacement car. That was the most luxurious car I’d ever been in.
Anyway. The car we have here is a Volvo 960 sedan, the successor of the Volvo 760. The 960 was made from 1990 until 1998 with a facelift in 1994. Our dark blue Beijing car is an original pre-facelift example. The 960 was not officially sold in China so seeing one is a rare pleasure. Over the years I have seen about a dozen. Some arrived via the gray market and others via diplomatic channels.
The interior was a bit of a mess with carton and other boxes and such, but at least the radio-CD-cassette player was original. The wood was still good. The beads seat covers are typical for southern China, like in Sichuan, but rare in northern Beijing.
The cool alloy wheels are original, it was a very novel design at the time. Sadly, the deflated tires point at abandonment.
The Volvo 960 was available with various petrol and diesel engines, ranging from a 2.0 to a 2.8 PRV V6 to a 2.9 l6. The engines were mated to a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic, sending horses to the rear wheels. There was no engine badge on this car so I can’t be sure what’s under the bonnet. We can rule out the diesel because diesel-powered passenger car aren’t allowed in China’s big cities.
The 960 badge in Volvo’s typical font. The engines of the Volvo 960 don’t comply with Beijing’s current emissions standards, so most of these cars are sold away to smaller cities or scrapped. May some of these classic Swedish sedans remain alive in the Chinese countryside!