dfb9018
New member
- Joined
- May 28, 2026
- Location
- San Jose Costa Rica
Okay so I just bought my third Volvo. I've had a 1992 740 Wagon (loved it) and a 2002 S80 (loved it when I wasn't mad at it's electronics). This time, I'm waiting a couple weeks for a new part (more on that later) and wanted to do some research on my 3 day owned 1987 (or 1989) depending on the source Volvo 240.
Embarrassingly, I've never owned a car with a choke and on day 2 flooded the engine and pretty sure fried my ignition pick up coil, hopefully once that's swapped I can begin to enjoy touring around on the immaculately preserved leather seats.
Anyways, I knowingly purchased this car knowing how big of a pain it would be to get parts as I'm currently living in Costa Rica but I wanted something fun. I'm now starting to realize that parts are a little bit harder still, because it's also euro/asian import and not manufactured for the US market.
Okay to my point: I think this car has some history. I've been told but haven't gotten to pulling the registration records from the government yet - it was imported by the former Costa Rican Ambassador to France and he was allowed to bring it back without paying import duties. However, the VIN plaque caught my eye as it's in Arabic. So I'm guessing maybe it was purchased in a gulf arab state and unsure if it even touched french soil at all.
Probably a long shot but I'd love to find out some more about the origin of this car - any advice on where to look? I saw some conflicting information about being able to ask Volvo HQ for something like this but it seems like maybe that's only available under specific circumstances.
Embarrassingly, I've never owned a car with a choke and on day 2 flooded the engine and pretty sure fried my ignition pick up coil, hopefully once that's swapped I can begin to enjoy touring around on the immaculately preserved leather seats.
Anyways, I knowingly purchased this car knowing how big of a pain it would be to get parts as I'm currently living in Costa Rica but I wanted something fun. I'm now starting to realize that parts are a little bit harder still, because it's also euro/asian import and not manufactured for the US market.
Okay to my point: I think this car has some history. I've been told but haven't gotten to pulling the registration records from the government yet - it was imported by the former Costa Rican Ambassador to France and he was allowed to bring it back without paying import duties. However, the VIN plaque caught my eye as it's in Arabic. So I'm guessing maybe it was purchased in a gulf arab state and unsure if it even touched french soil at all.
Probably a long shot but I'd love to find out some more about the origin of this car - any advice on where to look? I saw some conflicting information about being able to ask Volvo HQ for something like this but it seems like maybe that's only available under specific circumstances.
