Visit by the Silver Volvo 122S 123GT 2 Door Coupe

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My friend Rofino visited me yesterday with his Volvo 122S. We talked for nearly 2 hours, and I looked at the car inside out. He told me a day before that he will be visiting, and I was really excited looking forward to seeing the car!

It was around 10.30am, parked outside my office.

I sat inside the car, looking at the details. The design and arrangement is better than last time, but not perfect. The dash top part was painted in silver, same colour as the car’s body. The paint quality isn’t perfect, some chipping here and there. The gauges arrangement, radio, etc. are nice. I am not a fan of that GT steering wheel, I prefer my Moto Lita in the P1800. The seat covers are original I believed, but they are some tears and the sponges are very tired. I don’t feel spongy in it when sat down.

There are still some rust on the door hinges, but those are small matters.

The engine compartment looks similar as before, albeit some metal parts have been cleaned up or repainted. What I like about the engine compartment is that it looks pretty original. Some flaws that need to be attended though, eg. the RED engine valve cover will need to be changed immediately. I also noticed the carburetor seems to be wrong, there is an extra inlet hole on the other side of the petrol input. It should have been changed, but got the wrong one. This will be a bit challenging to find a replacement part for it. This is part of the fun of buying an old car, so that you can participate in restoring some parts.

Although the car is just newly painted, but I noticed some defects on the hood. The VOLVO letters area have some paint chippings. The rubbers around the left and right signals are old, not so nice. The headlight on the right seems to be distorted in installation, not sure can be easily corrected or not.

The stainless steel bumper is really shinny. I love the two front spots light as well, but not the 3+3 stars.

Not sure if is due to cloudy weather, I found the car to be slightly bluish. Not exactly whitish silver that I remembered.

Seller is asking over RM100k for the car. This shall be the most expensive Volvo 122s in Malaysia if I paid such price. Typical price for a 2 doors 122s is around RM70-80k for a restored unit. Rofino’s unit is in very good condition with power steering and a nice JBQ20 plate number, but not perfect. Still need to spend maybe RM10k for it, which includes new upholstery (RM5000), valve cover (RM1200), Su 6 Carburetor (RM600), windows tint (RM750), VOLVO Letters (RM400), Hood trim molding (spear) (RM400)…etc.

My ideal price of the car is RM90k, but he is not willing to let go at below RM100k. For above RM100k, I don’t think the car is worth that much. I am eyeing for another model now…