Rescuing Eva

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dragonflyjewels
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Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Thu Dec 05, 2019 10:43 pm

Now that she has reached a landmark seems like a good time to start a thread for her.

Image

Happy half century Eva !!
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

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jamescarruthers
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Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by jamescarruthers » Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:00 am

Never realised it was such low mileage!
1987 Volvo 480 ES, 507274, 217 - Red (Ness)
2006 Citroen C6 Exclusive 3.0 petrol/LPG
2008 Mini Cooper convertible (Mau)

Previous 480's:
J123 CFU -- ES
J449 MNL -- ES auto
D864 CPV -- ES
L691 JFC -- Turbo
F70 MNR -- ES
H858 FGV -- Turbo auto
E981 KHM -- ES (509849)

jifflemon
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Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by jifflemon » Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:06 am

I didn't realise she needed rescuing!

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dragonflyjewels
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Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Fri Dec 06, 2019 11:01 am

All will now be revealed on her brush with DEATH !

Eva has always been an OAP's car and garaged most of her life, hence the very low mileage and good bodywork.
All was well until in December 2012 her elderly owner had a prang. As a result he decided to hang up his driving gloves so when the insurance company announced she was a Cat C write off he just accepted their cheque for a measly £350. The perils of comprehensive insurance !! She had 30,000 miles on the clock. Here's the damage:

Image

Personally I see about £500 to get her back on the road - trailer hire/pair of wishbones/bumper and light cluster from a breaker and a visit to the bodyshop. Two new tyres not included in my estimate as they are 'disposables' I'd be buying anyway.

She languished at the breaker's yard for more than a year until they put her up for auction. A chap called David (another oap) bought her and did the work, and provided her with another dry garage to live in between hospital visits and trips to the shops. He only had her for about a year when he returned to the auction and laid eyes on a rare early Saab which had suffered a similar fate. Eva got turfed out of the garage to make way for the Saab, and was put up for sale to generate the cash for the Saab parts (we came to the conclusion he supplemented his pension doing this - good for him, he lived on his own and loved cars). The price started off very over-optimistically at £2350, which generated a few laughs on here: https://www.volvo-480-europe.org/forum/ ... ff#p206235

We'd been debating whether to try a turbo for a while, we 'only' had the two 2ltrs at the time, and the thought was that if we liked a turbo more, we'd sell one of the others. If not we'd re-sell the turbo. We'd looked for a while, then Eva came up Ellesmere Port,near Liverpool and a white turbo came up in Suffolk, not far at all. Eva was a long way away and ridiculously expensive, but the price was dropping. My preference was for white anyway so we went to look at that first. Tatty was the best way to describe it, with a scruffy 'boy-racer' type owner so I saw years of hard driving and neglect and said no. Eva was still too expensive and unsold, so I planned a few days in the area to visit Port Sunlight (fascinating place, lovely architecture) and of course we took the ferry across the Mersey. We went to see her on our first day there, David seemed honest and very capable with cars but some idiot had cleared out Eva's glove box so she had no previous paper history at all. What little he knew of her was word of mouth from the scrapyard staff, but her condition, MoT history and Volvo service history certainly bore it out. I left him to stew over night, then made an offer of £1250 the next morning. We settled on £1450 and Eva came home with us. On arrival, Al realised her carpet in the driver's footwell was wet, so he was straight on the phone to David, who admitted he had known about it and immediately offered to give us back £100. Luckily I had a nice new heater matrix tucked away in our spares stash. We gave her to Mr Pedantic the repairman to check that the accident damage to the suspension had been done properly, and also fit a new cambelt for the 'just-in-case' syndrome.
So for £1350 Eva came to live with us - two more oaps ! Her EWA no plate named her as that is the spelling of Eva in some countries, I think mainly eastern Europe.

to be continued...
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

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Jay-Kay-Em
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Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by Jay-Kay-Em » Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:31 pm

What an opportunity to rescue another Turbo from salvage and keep it in the community.

It is also a brilliant example of the need for 'agreed valuation' on insurance policies. I know values are all over the place, but to buy another, rust free, sub 50,000 mile Turbo with history and low owners, you'd need an ever increasing sum of money. A sum that a £350 cheque, even with excess allowing, wouldn't even come close!

Many of these HPI or glass' guide valuations don't reflect the classic market and the rarity. A case of insurers "computer says no".

I look forward to future updates.
Jay-Kay-Em
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dragonflyjewels
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Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:49 pm

Jay-Kay-Em wrote:
Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:31 pm
It is also a brilliant example of the need for 'agreed valuation' on insurance policies. I know values are all over the place, but to buy another, rust free, sub 50,000 mile Turbo with history and low owners, you'd need an ever increasing sum of money. A sum that a £350 cheque, even with excess allowing, wouldn't even come close!
I have always thought it quite extraordinary that comprehensive car insurance is the only type of insurance where you have no idea what value you are insuring your property for. I realise that the bulk of the premium is for damage to people, but even so. 'Market value' really only works for run of the mill cars and who could call a cherished 480 run of the mill ? There's a world of difference between a neglected old banger and an elderly lady who has had shedloads spent on keeping her pristine. I was very relieved when Snazzy was finally old enough to go onto classic insurance - I'd been worried about her being fully comp. for years.

Anyway, back to Eva. The downside of belonging to ole fogeys is the not knowing if the turbo has been regularly exercised, and Eva's turned out not to have been - with hindsight a year in the scrapyard followed by a year with David never going more than a few miles should have flagged up the need to have her cleaned out. It didn't, so we inevitably ended up having to have the turbo re-built a few weeks after we bought her but at least she finally put a smile on Al's face once done. Then he added a Robou mod and the smile got even wider. The plan to decide whether to keep a 2 litre or the turbo never materialised - we both came to the conclusion that the 2 litres have the edge on road holding and of course, better bottom end acceleration, but the turbos are so much better for long journeys. Decisions, decisions...... well, we just never made one.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Sat Dec 07, 2019 9:55 pm

Eva's next treat in 2015 was a trip to the bodyshop . she had various little scuffs and scrapes and a bit of rust on one door

Image

not bad for a 22 year old car
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Sun Dec 08, 2019 8:23 pm

2016 was a memorable year for Eva. Having escaped the scrapyard and put back into good condition, we set off for Germany in her to visit my daughter and then go on to a 480 meet which had been advertised on here. It was the 30th anniversary of the 480 introduction, and a German member called Daniel went to an enormous amount of trouble to organise an unforgettable weekend.
For us, the best thing he did was to track down John de Vries who designed our lovely cars and invite him to come along. John speaks good English and brought lots of drawings/cuttings and general information with him, and we had several long chats. Such a nice man ! On arrival on Friday afternoon, Joep and his family rushed over to greet us (we'd met them at a Dutch meet the year before which we'd gone to in Sven) Within minutes, Joep and several others has spotted that Eva's bonnet was not quite lined up perfectly, so up it went and got adjusted along with the pop up covers.

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That's Joep far right in the navy t shirt. Eva's 'catalyser' badge was photographed multiple times, the turbos over there don't have them.

On Saturday we did a 'road book', ie driving a predetermined route from crytic clues and spotting things along the way. John had never actually driven a 480, so Daniel had arranged for him to be chauffered by a Dutch member. We stopped off for lunch in a pretty little town and took over the carpark.

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sigh - there's always one the wrong way round isn't there Jeff ?

Saturday night was a BBQ round a big campfire with plenty of German beer, and we were all given a Skandix giftpack containing two bottle of lager and two tall lager glasses engraved 'Skandix' There was also an auction of 480 spare parts (Daniel has a business buying, selling, repairing and breaking 480s.)

On Sunday we gathered in the local Lidl carpark for group photos.

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Here is John with Eva on the left. As you can see it was a great turnout, more than 40 cars. After the photos we had driving skills competitions. I was blindfolded and had to drive around a course with Al giving me instructions. It's amazing how disorientating it is ! Needless to say I made a complete hash of it, simply through just not believing that Al could possibly be right.....
I did however redeem myself when the blindfold came off and I was told to park as close as I could to a board without hitting it.

Image

Not bad - I got 2nd place.

In Germany, the first group of letters of the registration plate indicate the town, then after is the town badge followed by 1 or 2 letters and 3 numbers which can be bought for 100 euros, anything you want as long as it's not rude and no-one else has it in the same town. So at the meeting were
GT 480, ES 480, TT 480, V 480
then someone in a town abbreviated to ME had ME.MY 480, but best of all was FO.XY 480

Every car that went to the meet came home with a Limburg clock - Daniel had collected 50 clocks, presumably mostly from cars he'd broken, and he had new faces printed. No idea how long it took him to prise 50 clocks apart to change them, but Al fitted Eva's straight away.


Image

We also came home with the news that everyone from the meet was invited to a meeting of the French 480 club in the September, so we went to that as well, but not in Eva so that's another story for another time.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

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dragonflyjewels
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Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Sat Dec 14, 2019 6:21 pm

2017 came along, and Lily had joined the fleet. By May, Snazzy was on sorn while her seats were away at the trimmers and Lily was in the bodyshop so I had Eva on the road and used her for the mini-meet. Then in June I was offered a Paris Momo steering wheel so we bought that and fitted it to Eva.

Image

Sorry it's upside down - it's a tight lock into our carport and the same direction out again so no point scuffing the tyres to straighten it up.

We took Sven and Eva to a meeting of the Volvo Enthusiast's Club. They have various trophies and winners are decided by members voting. I was quite chuffed when Eva was runner-up in the best 400 series category. The winner was a black ES which was absolutely immaculate so I could quite see why - apparently it always wins, and also goes to Sweden every year where it usually wins awards as well. I have recently heard a rumour about a black 480 that wins trophies it shouldn't get because it has a Celebration interior and originality matters to the people who vote. The problem is that the trophies are being awarded by people who don't know enough about the UK models to realise. I checked the photos of the one at the VEC and sure enough it has Celebration wheels which I hadn't noticed before. I must have a look at the dashboard next year and see if there is a number plaque - it'll be another one on the register that is known to be broken if it's there.

In September Lily was on the road, so we took the two turbos to the French club meeting in southern Belgium. John de Vries was there again, so we were able to get both cars signed by him.

Image

That's John with his wife Janny between our two cars.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Tue Dec 17, 2019 4:56 pm

Not much happened to Eva in 2018. Apart from a power steering pump little needed doing for either the service or the mot. I always have them done 6 months apart as I prefer elderly cars to be checked over twice a year rather than once. Eva went to a small Volvo meet at the Ace Cafe in west London - last time I was there was as a rebellious teenager on the back of a Triumph Bonneville. Those were the days....

Al took Eva to the May mini meet, then she stepped in when Lily broke down shortly after we left for the Hampshire run in September. Eva was actually on sorn, but Sven was in for repairs and Snazzy was still awaiting her refurb at the bodyshop so we nearly ran out of 480s ! After Lily was trailered home I had to swiftly get online to tax Eva, then we were off to the rental garage Eva was tucked up in in north Norfolk before we eventually set off again for our rendezvous with James. I seem to recall arriving at the Travelodge well after midnight having original left just after lunch, but at least we got there and in a 480 to boot. What a shame Al spent so long washing and polishing Lily, whilst I cleaned the inside, waxed the leather and repaired the cracked dashboard, only to arrive in grubby Eva.....
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Thu Dec 19, 2019 7:02 pm

So, with 2019 we are almost up to date. Apart from needing a new lambda sensor, Eva sailed through the MoT, and the service 6 months later was equally painless. Al hates cleaning the Vesa wheels, so I was tasked to find a set of Pictors. Thanks to jifflemon spotting them, we bought a set from Germany that popped up on ebay. They arrived without the centre caps, which started a whole train of frustrated efforts to get some, but eventually it was ebay to the rescue again.

Image

I have to say, I think they look great as well.

In March Eva went to the Volvo 600, and came home with a bit of clutch slip which wasn't exactly happy making. A fate suffered by many of the cars present due to all the stopping and starting. Hopefully next year's attempt will be much better organised now they have the benefit of hindsight. Here's a photo I found on flickr from someone's dashcam, taken in Lutterworth near Bruntingthoprpe

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Al took her to the May mini-meet, and also the VEC meeting. It's usually somewhere near to Wayne of WR Composites so we take the opportunity to go and visit - he hasn't had much joy reproducing dashboards as they are such complicated shapes, but currently he is copying a front number plate holder and a pollen filter housing for us. Both may eventually be available to all. Whilst there, we stayed overnight at Chateau Impney - beautiful place in lovely grounds. There were various displays in the reception showing their annual hill-climb event so we decided to go to that.

When we arrived at the entrance of the car park reserved for classics, we had a bit of bother persuading the staff Eva is a classic, but I had noticed the event was sponsored by Footman James, through whom we insure Lily. I bent the truth a bit and told them Eva was insured through FJ and that swung it.
When we returned at the end of the day, I spotted another Paris Blue 480 not far away and posted it on here. Then Jifflemon told me we'd been spotted as well, but by someone from Classic Car Weekly

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wow, she's famous !

Now we are off to Spain to hide from the UK weather so I wanted everyone dry while we are gone. Lily is in our garage (the second bay is full of 'stuff'), Sven is in a garage we rent and Snazzy is in a restoration workshop being pampered with a warm air blower and dehumidfying system. That just left Eva, and then I saw edie_fox's post about the Carcoon and Jeff's comment
Carcoons are superb.....

As long as you live in a cat free neighbourhood.
well, we have a cat, but she's coming with us so her claws won't be a problem.

It arrived yesterday and after laying first cardboard then carpet on our sharp gravel, Eva stepped gingerly onto the base. Al spent an interesting few hours getting it all up and running - he wasn't impressed with the instructions but he is with the finished thing.

Image

o dear, I STILL haven't finished painting the house ! Must get back to it in the spring or the colour won't match.

We leave for Spain tomorrow and arrive on the 23rd, just in time to panic over trying to find a decent bird for Christmas dinner. Which reminds me

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR 480 FRIENDS !!
Last edited by dragonflyjewels on Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Fri Jan 08, 2021 7:18 pm

Needless to say little has happened this year and our annual trip to Spain is out of the question. Eva has recently gone into our pedantic garageman for a belated service, having driven approx 50 miles all year, purely because her cambelt is due to be changed based on age. It had also dawned on me that we've had her 5 years and done nothing about her rear bumper bar, so I asked to have both front and rear removed. We went over today to collect them to take to the blasting company we use. Much to my surprise, the rear one is near perfect with just a small amount of surface rust here and there. However, the front one was not a pretty sight, with some quite large rust holes all along the length of it. It'll be fine once welded but none of our other cars have had anywhere near so much rust on their front bars. I'm wondering if it could have been due to the front end damage that wrote her off - maybe the impact cracked the paint all the way along it and let the water seep in.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Tue Dec 21, 2021 9:12 pm

Eva has been in our new bodyshop for little bits of rust here and there. Also a large crack in the windscreen, so I wanted that taken out for the bodyshop to check underneath for rust before a new one was fitted. Surprisingly, the surround was perfect - our man said he'd never seen such good condition on a car so old so that was pleasing. There was a small amount of rust on the front o/s wheel arch, but when they started to grind it back a whole load of filler dropped out. It was quite badly dented in the accident that caused the cat C write off so I'd hoped it was a replacement wing but sadly not. All knocked back out to shape now and a small piece of metal welded in where the rust was, so we are expecting her to be finished soon.

When we arrived, I was quite surprised to find that Eva was luxuriating in the warmth of the workshop whilst a lovely Porsche Carrera sat outside. Al and I both commented it looked rather like Paris Blue, but the light was fading fast so we assumed it was misleading. However, our man told us that he'd had trouble matching the Carrera's paint he mixed from the car's code so he got his paint man in to photograph the colour and run it through the computer. Back came the mixing info, which looked very familiar. He checked, and sure enough, it was the same as Eva's ! It apparently isn't a Porsche colour so we are very curious to know how it came to have a Volvo one. Maybe the owner spotted Snazzy or Eva and couldn't resist a full copycat re-spray !!

Image
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

100
Knows where Volvo is from
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Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2018 10:23 pm

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by 100 » Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:22 pm

Looks like Porsche's Zenith Blue Metallic? ImageImage

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dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Rescuing Eva

Post by dragonflyjewels » Fri Dec 24, 2021 6:21 pm

Does look very close, doesn't it, but then the bodyshop said the match was nearly but not quite, so maybe that's the colour the car should have been.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

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