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Brand new '81 262C Bertone Coupe . . .

Could those wheels be painted the same gold when the roof/hood gets painted?
Its the 3 shades that looks off. IMO
The standard wheels do look nice but smallish. What do I know? My wife says her Bertone will keep the factory wheels. Coronas?
 
This car was advertised in Rolling back in 1997, IIRC. At the time, it had less than 1,000 miles on it and had never been registered. I'll have to look for the issue I saw it in and take a pic of the ad.

-J
 
If this car had 1,000 miles on it in 97 the previous owner completely misrepresented the history of this exceptional car. I doubt if this is the same car but would love to see the ad.

The Craiglist car, I believe, is a Florida car with very similar mileage and I believe it is still available for around $10,000. I could be wrong there.
 
This is almost certainly a different car. I talked at length to the 86 year old gentleman who owned it. He told me that the car was his wife's car, had been at the repair shop for about a year, and had not been driven since his wife died 17 years ago and had not been driven much the previous 2 years while she was ill. His wife had driven it little for several unquantified years before that. He was not the original owner as I found that information in the glove box. It was sold new in Jacksonville, FL.

I'm trying to get a local parts store to save the year old battery then I will attempt to trouble shoot the non starting issue while I am working on the leather interior.

Now, a question for the assembled multitude;

The car is going to need paint. I am not really fond of the gold/bronze and would consider a solid gold as this car came in 1980. I has a gold '80 as shown in my avatar. Also not fond of the non Volvo wheels. At a minimum I would paint the copper/gold to match the body gold . . . or the body bronze. I think I am going to use it as a daily driver toy car but have two other DD toys in addition to the 'official' DD the wife uses and at least one if not two is/are going to have to go.

The question is: Should this car be restored as an '81 to preserve it as a true low mileage collector original or neatened up as I would want it?

Leaning to original restoration but what say you?
 
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You sir, with your quick action, willingness to risk and skill set, have earned the right to do to it whatever you want.

In my opinion, transformation from original will lessen any collectable value, destroy a somewhat historic car (one of the last ten 200 series Bertones produced, I believe) and increase the value of those remaining that have been left unaltered.

On the other hand, you may be creating just the car you want and will more enjoy.

I truly envy your freedom of choice and congratulate you.
 
I think leaving the paint original and just taking good care of it (Ie waxing etc) would be fine. I Also think keeping the meshies is a good plan. painting the meshies to match, if you're very particular about the look, would be sharp, personally I'd leave them, or paint to match the lighter Gold colour.
 
Your comment does raise a question: Volvo was phasing out the Coupes in '81. Does anyone have any production number information on the Coupes by year. Wouldn't it be neat to have the last one. The VINumber ends in 0899. I am active on another vehicle forum and they have the production numbers down to; by color by year, by coupe, by convertible. Anything like that over here in Swed land?
 
Jason, I would love to try to restore the paint but for the horizontal surfaces that is not going to happen. I have studied the science of auto paint and they are just too far gone. I will attempt to save the bronze which is really in pretty good shape.

Something is going to have to happen to the wheels. I cleaned one just to get an fair picture. Took some but the sun was too bright to display the situation. The wheel color is copper/gold and 'clashes' with the gold/bronze and are not Volvo original.

Let the sun go down a bit and tried a picture again.

P4140888.jpg


Copper/gold just doesn't get it.
 
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I'd be tempted to repaint only the needed and match the A/M wheels or paint those wheels black and swap wheels with the wagon?
I would also be torn on the 2tone. As its rare that makes it interesting however all gold might look better. Tough call.
 
I'm in the same situation,restore or redo to my taste.I'm leaning towards redoing mine all gold.I too had an 80 Bertone all gold that got pretty rusty and I parted it out.I got this one because the condition was very good except for the gold metallic paint that volvo used.It seems the volvo silver and gold metallic paints did not hold up as well as their enamels.That is why the "bronze/brown" color is in much better condition.I am 98% sure that these 2 color Bertones were first painted all gold and then the brown color was painted over the gold.So if you paint it gold it would be easy to return it to the 2 tone color at a later date.
As to the comment about a craigslist ad I 'm doing a search right now for it although it may be deleted by now.The craigslist ad had an 81 2 tone Bertone,low miles,needing work on the fuel distributor.Same story the guy spent about $2000 to get it running,car in a barn,etc.
Op how did you come to find this car?
 
1977-78 qty built 1670 chassis # 1-4329
1978-79 " " 2120 " #4330-6449
1979-80 " " 1920 " #6450-8356
1980-81 " " 912 " #8357-???
 
R-AWD posted to a number of folks active on the forum trying to find a good home for a little orphan. I had had an '80 Bertone and lived about 75 miles away. Weather was perfect and I and a few of my scooter trash friends rode up to see it. Bought it on the spot.

The interior alone is worth what I paid for it.
 
FWIW Tom -- I'd take the restoration approach. If that was a factory paint scheme (what the hell were they thinking?) I'd try my best to keep it like that. Paint as little as possible. As for the wheels - if something else came on the car new -- and you want to go back to those, fine. But if those wheels were some sort of dealer option -- I'd stick with them. They're period correct. I had VW's back in the early/mid 80's with 'gold' Enkei's that were BBS knock-offs. Although I'm a bit ashamed to admit it... :oops:
 
NEL-621, where would an '81 with a vin of 0899 fit into that. And a chassis number 006539?

The diversion to Italy might account for some but you chassis list puts it into '80 but the EPA decals and title say '81.
 
From one of the sites above Tom --- "...final 1981 versions receiving the new frontal treatment and revised instrument panel introduced for the 1981 model year." Does yours have the 80 or 81 instrument panel?
 
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