MEET THE OWNER – SAMUEL MACE AND HIS VOLVO S90

I have a brand affinity for Volvo as my dad owned a succession of them, and I was in the market for a C70 convertible. However, Facebook Marketplace’s algorithm presented me with this, and I wanted it the moment I saw it! It had been listed for 11 minutes when I enquired. I drove down to view it the next day, and it came home with me. I have craved a 960/S90 for years but never seemed to find one worth having or that was not stupid money.

And at last, Samuel Mace owns a 1998 S90, the final incarnation of the 960 and arguably the swan song of the traditional large Volvos. Twenty-six years ago, your Ford dealer might have offered you a tempting discount on a soon-to-be discontinued Scorpio, but it lacked the S90’s pomp and circumstance. Our Volvo enthusiast might also dismiss a Lexus as a transport for Alan Partridge-style motorists. The Rover 800 looked appealingly formidable, but did not quite match the S90’s air of being hewn from granite.

Volvo partially devised the 960 for the US market, and The New York Times described it as “A Box That’s Well Rounded”. Their viewer also found it “a quiet, comfortable handler that is fully endearing”. As for Samuel’s view of his mighty 2.9-litre saloon:

Despite the fact that it uses the same kind of rear suspension as a C4 Corvette, a fact that Volvo crammed down your throat at every opportunity, it is still a bit dull to drive. Stable, and BMW E38-like in its hunkered down feel, but still a bit dull. Yet, it has road presence. Nobody tailgates you, even if you take it easy, while it is in a great colour, rust-free and feels like a car with decades ahead of it.

As for the S90’s construction:

The body is built like a warship, while the interior is more like a National Trust property interior. Everything creaks, everything feels like it is about to break, everything is UV damaged, and you get told off if you sit on the wrong seat. Then again, the wood in National Trust properties does not look like it’s been bought by the yard and cut from a roll.

Above all, Samuel appreciates the styling:

It is obvious Volvo were desperately trying to paste Peter Horbury’s softer new design language over the last remaining brick, which was still kicking around. This sort of facelift reminds me of a council doing a half-arsed facelift on a Brutalist shopping centre they would dearly love to rip down. They tried throwing in an atrium here, a neo-gothic pillar there – but we know it is still full of asbestos and hiding ’70s technology.

Such a description, as well as evoking nightmares of Portsmouth’s Tricorn Centre with Neo-Tudor decorations, reminds us that the S90 was a direct descendant of the 1969 164. In addition, the British Volvo buyer of 1998 would probably have been a Wolseley customer four decades earlier; indeed, the 6/99 inspired the 164’s grille. Both marques embodied quiet dignity, discreet taste, and covert mockery of Ford and Vauxhall owners. Meanwhile, Samuel finds his S90:

more than lives up to expectations. It hugs the road in a Jaguar-like fashion, which I wasn’t expecting, and soothes in a way I wasn’t expecting. It also has a surprisingly rev-hungry engine and very secure handling – and inspires mindful, courteous driving.

A Volvo owner would expect nothing less.

With thanks to Samuel Mace for his time and permission to use the images in this blog.