The Purchase and Import
I purchased the car in Sweden. Last year, my partner had a work trip in Copenhagen, Denmark and I tagged along to sightsee and, more importantly, check out all the cool European cars. I scouted out all the Volvo 480's I could find in the nearby area on sites like mobile.de and autoscout24 and found a good looking 1993 turbo in Växjö, Sweden -- nice black metallic color (305), good condition, low miles (77,000 KM). I took a day trip up to Sweden on the train and had a great afternoon checking out the 480 Turbo, taking it for a test drive, and speaking with the owner of the shop and his friend. I ended up agreeing to buy the car and then had to figure out how to import the car to the USA. In the USA, we're only allowed to import vehicles not sold here after they are 25 years old. This is based on the production date of the car. The Volvo I bought was made in November 1993, but it was May 2018 when I purchased the car (about six months too early). Thankfully the seller was kind enough to store the vehicle for a few months while I waited for it to mature and arrange shipping. I asked around in some Facebook groups for advice on shipping and imports and found a good recommendation. The importer was super helpful and arranged picking up the car, getting it prepped for shipment, and dealing with customs and paperwork. My partner actually wrote up a post about this over at her blog on Garage Riot, The Journey of a Volvo 480 Turbo. Also interestingly, someone else wrote up an article about the same car I bought, Rare Rides: The Volvo 480 of 1993, Which Doesn’t Look Like a Volvo
480 Turbo Comes to America
The car finally arrived in the USA at the end of December and I was able to pick it up from the port in Baltimore, MD in January. Here are some pictures of making my way to the port to pick up the car.
Stay tuned for future posts about the car, more pictures, and updates on projects.
