Highlights Manual gearbox Extensive service history and fresh MOT Tuned to 298 bhp Current owner for over 25 years Cambelt changed Overview Standard-issue Volvo 850 R commentary usually involves notes on the transportation of antique furniture at speed, and other such amusements.

But the 850 R we see here isn’t a standard-issue estate.

Instead, it’s something even more intriguing: a four-door saloon.

Gone is the large box-shaped rear end, being replaced by a bootlid adorned with a colour-matched rear spoiler.

So not being unable to deploy our favourite references to antique dealers in a hurry, we’re left looking at the 850 R afresh.

It is not to be confused with the earlier T5-R, which followed the T5.

With each new release came an increase in horsepower — from 225 bhp in the original T5, to 240 in the T5-R, then finally 250 bhp when the R was announced.

But the example we see here goes even further: the car’s long-term owner purchased it way back in the year 2000, and decided t...