850 R Has No Clearcoat?!
Isn’t a high-end car such as an 850 R supposed to have clearcoat over the paint? Wasn’t this a standard practice on expensive cars in the 1990s?
The answer is “Apparently Not”.
xjflexer » That is correct. Your car does NOT have a clearcoat. You’d be surprised how many German/European car manufacturers did not put a clearcoat on their red and white paint jobs. I used to have a ’96 850R sedan exactly like yours. Bought it from the original owner with 60k on it, and the original red paint would fade/oxydize if not kept polished. Even my white 850R wagon doesn’t have a clearcoat. Fortunately, it does not oxydize nearly as quickly as the red.
The best, longest lasting fix for your car is a new, high quality paint job WITH clearcoat. Otherwise, you will detail your car will show signs of fading within a couple weeks of being detailed.
Bonus! More on the Volvo 850 R
Here’s a fact for you: Volvo made a high-performance luxury sedan in the 1990s with the same horsepower as the BMW M3. That’s hard to imagine today, as Volvo would have to be making a 450-hp version of the S60, but back in the 1990s, they did it.
Admittedly, this was more a function of the M3’s unusually low hp rating at the time (240) than some ultra-fast Volvo. But I still like thinking about a mid-1990s Volvo that was fast, fun, exciting and largely unknown.
The Volvo I’m talking about here is the 850 R, which was sold from 1995 to 1997. Actually, it was sold from 1996 to 1997, because Volvo called it the “T5R” in 1995. Generally speaking, it was the same vehicle with the same powertrain and only some cosmetic differences. And in my opinion, it was very cool.
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Last Updated on March 14, 2021
