Ever seen a pro bodybuilder in a suit? If you have then you’ll know how ridiculous they look, and why the idea of a Volvo turning its blocky 200-Series sedan into a suave coupe capable of mixing with the Mercedes 280CE and Jaguar XJ6C would have seemed absurd if someone had suggested it anytime prior to March 1977.
But that March at the Geneva Motor Show Volvo pulled the covers back on a brick that was almost beautiful. Not beautiful in the obvious sense, perhaps, but certainly handsome, sophisticated, and cool. That car was the 262C, or the Volvo Coupe as it would later come to be known in America, the hugely lucrative market it was conceived for.
Volvo already offered a two-door version of the 244 and 264 sedans as well as the more familiar four-door model and wagon variants. But compared with the two-door sedan the Coupe’s A-pillars were pulled back and the roofline was lowered by 60 mm (2.4 inches) to give a sportier, more aggressive stance that decimated headroom, according to Road & Track’s period test.
The design was the work of Volvo’s chief designer, Jan Wilsgaard, but since Volvo’s Gothenburg plant wasn’t set up to build such a niche product, the job of producing the 262C fell to Bertone in Italy, who modified the bodies and painted and trimmed them. The first cars were all silver with a black vinyl roof, but from 1979 buyers could order one in gold with no vinyl.
Related: This Isn’t Your Typical Volvo 262C Bertone Coupe
Under the big, wide hood was the PRV V6 jointly developed with Peugeot and Renault, and later, also found behind the seats of John DeLorean’s DMC-12. Initially displacing 2.7 liters and rated at 141 hp (143 PS), it received a bump to 2.8 liters and 155 hp (157 PS) in the early 1980s. That was the Euro-spec car, anyway. The original U.S. model was stiffed with a catalytic converter that choked it down to 125 hp (127 PS) which meant zero to 60 mph (97 kmh) took a leisurely 11.1 seconds.
If performance hardly exceeded expectations, the sales figures at least did. Volvo had planned to make 800 per year, but despite it costing twice as much as a base sedan, the Coupe found 6,622 buyers between 1977 and 1981.
And these days it’s something of a cult classic, which is why this example stopped us in our tracks as we were perusing the Collecting Cars auction. Though fitted with what looks like U.S.-spec headlights, it has a metric speedometer that shows it has covered just under 156,000 (97,000 miles) from new. And while it’s no trailer queen, it appears to have handled those miles, and the intervening 45 years, well, even if it has picked up some of those nasty chrome arch add-ons somewhere along the way.
If you like the idea of being the person to peel them off and find out what’s lurking underneath, you can check out the full auction listing here.
