Volvo have a reputation, solid, reliable, family cars, usually estates, preferably with a dog guard and a Labrador in the back.  Occasionally though Volvo have stepped out of this area into more stylish territory, the P1800 and 262C stand as great examples of Volvo's willingness to build more style friendly cars.  The Volvo 780 is another of these occasional super cool two door coupes.

First shown at the Geneva Auto Show in 1985 the 780 rolled off the production line and into show rooms a year later.  Designed and built by Carrozzeria Bertone in Italy the car was designed from the group up, rather than being a massaged version of another Volvo model, whilst retaining styling elements from the 700 series of cars that supplied the mechanical component.

Mechanically the car is pretty vanilla, initially arriving with B280F engine, the 2.8 litre engine produced a relatively uninspiring 144 hp which wasn't really enough to push the car at any great speed.  Later Volvo introduced a turbo engine that gave 175hp, further development lead to 188 hp.  The car was never going to set the world alight on performance, however it was eventually brisk enough for a 2+2 touring coupe.

Internally Bertone went to town with leather upholstery, Birch burl wood, power adjusted seats, air conditioning and cruise control, all the create comforts were there.  The interior has the look of a car in a higher prestige bracket than a Volvo.

Whilst this is a pretty rare car, it isn't as rare as some we have featured, with production numbers ranging around the 9,000 it was a car that had sustained production.  Over half of the numbers were produced went to the USA, for 89, 90 and 91, the majority of the cars left Volvo on a boat to America.  We'd love to know if any right hand drive examples were made, but haven't found evidence of them so far.

For more information on the Volvo 780 have a look at this Volvo 780 site has a lot to be getting on with.

Our pictures for the example car came from here.

We also discovered that some people hold them in fairly high regard: