Limited edition cars - 1990s sales and promotion

[Martin63]

Can anyone remember far back enough to the 1990s to recall whether Volvo dealers were allocated a limited stock of GTs, Celebrations, the Two Tone, Paris Blue cars etc and it was then down to the Volvo dealer to sell them or was it a case of a potential customers needing to contact their Volvo dealer and the dealer then checking with Volvo to see if there were any in-stock?

Or I suppose it might have been a combination of both of the above scenarios

Yes, I know, it's a bit of an unusual question!

[WillC9303]

I read somewhere either on here or on Facebook from an ex-Volvo salesman that the each Volvo dealer was assigned a certain number of GTs and Celebrations to have in stock, considering they only made 250 and 480 of each respectively.

The Two-Tones I believe were an order only basis, meaning that Volvo only made as many as they had requests for them. That meant they weren't really a Limited Edition, at least not to a predetermined number anyway. It is estimated around 2000-2500 Two-Tones ended up being made Europe-wide, with approximately 700 of which reaching the UK.

As for the Paris Editions, my guess is that they were a similar deal to the Two-Tones, but only clearly never sold in the same numbers. Sales figures of the Paris Editions are near impossible to estimate, but my guess is that potentially less than 150-200 made it to the UK. They were sold in some European countries too, but are equally as rare. @dragonflyjewels owns 1 of the 3 or so remaining Paris Blue Editions left in the UK.

[Martin63]

I read somewhere either on here or on Facebook from an ex-Volvo salesman that the each Volvo dealer was assigned a certain number of GTs and Celebrations to have in stock, considering they only made 250 and 480 of each respectively.

The Two-Tones I believe were an order only basis, meaning that Volvo only made as many as they had requests for them. That meant they weren't really a Limited Edition, at least not to a predetermined number anyway. It is estimated around 2000-2500 Two-Tones ended up being made Europe-wide, with approximately 700 reaching the UK.

As for the Paris Editions, my guess is that they were a similar deal to the Two-Tones, but only clearly never sold in the same numbers. Sales figures of the Paris Editions are near impossible to estimate, but my guess is that potentially less than 150-200 made it to the UK. They were sold in some European countries too, but are equally as rare. @dragonflyjewels owns 1 of the 3 or so remaining Paris Blue Editions left in the UK.

Great information - thanks! I have a dealer directory from Q3 2006 with 151 Volvo dealers listed in the UK including Jersey and Guernsey. So if the number of dealers remained steady they would only potentially have a couple each - and the smaller dealers maybe even zero.