At $6,000, Is This 2004 Volvo S60R A Swede Deal?

Today’s Nice Price or No Dice S60R is a rare six-speed manual edition with the wonderfully funky “space ball” shifter. Let’s see if it’s priced well enough for anyone to consider making space for it in the driveway.

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We ended last week on a high note with a 1979 Chevy Corvette L82 blessed with a comparably low price. Not only was $8,500 an appealing deal for the majority of you, but the car’s high-for-its-era horsepower and four-speed stick imbued even more advantage. The result was a 60 percent Nice Price win to send us happily into summer’s first weekend.

Here we are now on the first Monday of summer, and seeing as it’s the sweltering season, let’s look at a fairly hot car. That hotness is a 2004 Volvo S60R, which, as the seller succinctly explains in the ad, is “a rare high-performance spec of the regular Volvo S60 executive sedan.”

That added R on the S60’s badge brings a lot of heat to the mid-sized sedan’s game. Under the hood sits a 296-horsepower edition of Volvo’s 2.5-liter inline five-cylinder. It reaches that substantial number through a big KKK turbo (that company needs a better name), dual intercoolers, and an aggressive cam profile abetted by variable valve openings on both the intake and exhaust sides. That’s matched with a six-speed swizzle stick and Haldex-based AWD.

Automatic-equipped Rs were limited to a puny 258 lb-ft or torque, but being a manual means this car gets the full 300 lb-ft the engine can muster. According to the ad, this S60 has 151,000 miles and has enjoyed some recent (as in, within the last few years) maintenance work. Included in that are a new alternator, water pump, and fuel pump, along with some freshened front struts. A couple of common bugaboos on these mills are the PCV system and head gasket failures. The ad notes that a “vacuum system cleaning & overhaul,” which might mean the former, at least, has been addressed.

Visually, the car shows off its years and mileage. The bodywork looks good, although there are some scrapes in the paint and a cracked lens on one of the tail lamps. The stock Pegasus wheels appear to be in good nick and wear Pirelli P-Zeros with less than 10,000 miles on them.

The biggest issue with the exterior is the gray trim, which is turning ashy and shows weird Sahara desert ribbing, which these cars tend to do. The answer is some trim rejuvenator applied with regularity.

Things look better in the cabin. The Gobi leather upholstery shows no discernible wear and is matched by similarly appearing leather on the steering wheel and shift knob. That shift knob tops the S60R’s party piece, which is its “Space Ball” shift lever. That’s pretty cool, as are the R-specific blue-faced gauges in the cluster. The boot needs a good cleaning and a piece of errant trim to be addressed, but it appears unremarkable otherwise.

According to the ad, the title is clean, and it is noted that the car has been under its current ownership for the past four years. During that time, the seller says it has been “very reliable, driven back and forth across the country, and a ton of fun to drive.” They are asking $6,000 for the car and are happy to chat should you want more info about it or just need someone to listen to you rant about the state of the world for a bit.

What’s your take on this S60R and that $6,000 asking? Does that feel like a cool deal for a hot car in its present state? Or, at that price, would this smooth Swede need to be a little less rough around the edges?