So Volvo 480 Celeb 403 has been safely delivered to the new purchaser / collector and he is delighted with the car. He will be adding the car to his private car collection of other varied classics and will be taking Volvo to a few car meets. He has washed and polished the car again and has it parked safely in his garage. So it looks like it will remain pampered like it has been throughout its life which has resulted in the amazing preserved condition it has remained in after 25 years. The purchaser was a pleasure to deal with and I hope to call to him and view his car collection sometime in the future.
Previous issues and queries posted on here are now rectified. I think its important to clarify a few points regarding this Volvo as the new owner will be joining the Volvo 480 club in the future and I would like to clarify these now.
FRONT SPOILER : A special thanks to Sylvia and Wayne. Thank you Sylvia for giving me Wayne's contact details. Thanks to Wayne at WR components who was able to provide me with a new 480 spoiler. Wayne was a pleasure to deal with. As previously mentioned the spoiler was missing from this car and had proved very difficult to obtain a new one. The supplying Volvo dealer had made a note in the service records back in August 2005 that the original front spoiler had some crack damage and was removed from car. A new spoiler was painted and fitted to the Volvo prior to delivery this week.
DASHBOARD : Crack on corner of dashboard was repaired without having to replace dashboard with another one which was a huge relief.
TYRES : This Volvo originally sat on Goodyear tyres. New budget brand tyres were fitted for MOT in 2016 just prior to original owner selling car. These had covered approx 300 miles in the last 4 years. However a new set of quality AVON tyres were fitted to the Volvo last week for the new buyer prior to delivery.
BOOT BADGE : Finally solved the mystery regarding rear hatch badge. As already mentioned these Volvo 480 celebs were badged "480" from new. This Volvo had a "480ES" badge on rear glass. Some had suggested that the very last Celebs were badged "480ES" toward end of production and others suggested altering the badge. I was reluctant to do this so I contacted the glass company and also Volvo with no real clarification so I took a gamble and I wrote to the original owner that had purchased car new to see if I could get any further info. I didn't hold out much hope but to my absolute delight I received a lovely letter from the original owner a few weeks ago informing me that she remembered the car very well and told me that the rear glass was damaged at an automatic car wash many years ago and the supplying dealer "John Morris Volvo" replaced rear hatch with a brand new one and she understands at the time that the "480" badge was unavailable so they fitted a "480ES" . She was delighted to hear that the Volvo 480's are now a very sought after modern classic and was amazed that her old car would be forming part of a private car collection in the UK. Along with all that and some other info she kindly supplied me with some photos of herself with the car back in 1995 just after she had purchased it new. This was a very interesting letter to receive along with some rare original photos which adds greatly to the already extensive history of this Volvo 480 no. 403.
The new owner would at some stage like to replace badge rather than alter the existing one. If anyone on here in the 480 Club has a badge to sell or a "480" badge from a Celebration model, I would like to buy it so that I can send it to the new owner. I can be contacted by email at
info@marcusmotors.com
Best of luck to all those on here restoring and driving your Volvo 480's. What an amazing car these are to those in the know. So way ahead of its time. Happy Motoring.
Henry
. Returning to the UK to form part of an extensive private classic car collection shortly.
