Yes, yes... I know... beware of African scammers, dodgy emails and phone calls from strange men claiming to be sourcing cars for wealthy associates abroad and asking you to deliver it to Liverpool docks in lieu of a cheque for ten times the asking prices.

However...

About a month back I put my 850R estate up for sale. Rather reluctantly I hasten to add but the usual too many toys/she doesn't like it/head ruling the heart kicked in and so on to the classifieds it went and rather oddly, generated very little interest. I went on holiday and pretty much decided that I'd pull the advert and keep it given I was actually rather fond of it's pace and alarming addiction to super unleaded.

Last week, woken by an early morning call from a potential buyer. Lovely chap, asked all about the car, it's history and general condition. Not a problem. Said chap doesn't sound local and unsurprisingly announces he's actually based in London. Ok, not an issue. We have airports, railways and motorways in Scotland and should he be interested, I'm sure the R could be there in a shade over 6yrs. he then says he's actually buying on behalf of somebody else. That faint alarm bell has just got louder but I'll listen for a bit longer.

To cut a long story short and without being too forward with the finer details, seems the chap was buying for a certain tall, curly haired TV personality and my beloved Volvo would be off to Africa to take part in a future Top Gear challenge. "Yeah yeah, whatever buddy!" but alas no, last week two lovely chaps from the BBC flew up to Scotland, drove the car, smiled, gave me some money and then drove it to London where it's being "prepared" and will be off out to Africa later this week - whether it returns, well that's another story and if it does I fully epect it to be riddled with bullet holes, minus half it's bodywork, on fire, adorned with animal skulls and full of sand.

Sadly I'm not sure exactly what lies in store for it nor what the challenge is going to be but for some reason I can't be help feel that Clarkson + Africa + automatic Volvo 850R can't end well for any of them. Still, quite excited to see what happens and until I do, I'll refrain from making an offer to buy it back afterwards. Damn, the purists are gonnie hate me for this one!

Anyways, cool story bro and all that...

Sadly from my point of view, the car wasn't worth much more than a year's TV license! In fact the flights and fuel to get it to London would probably deem it an uneconomical write off! I used to fill the tank and ring the insurance to say I'd made a significant value adding addition...

Well what do you know! Interesting one . Goes without saying though, it'll be getting some abuse.

Mixed emotions on my part. Happy the car sold with absolutely zero hassle but also a bit sad that it'll probably end up being blown to pieces. Ironically, following the initial call I planned to have it fully valeted, any minor cosmetic issues sorted, go daft with the machine polisher but after the second call and the announcment that it was off to Africa... I figured that was a bit pointless!

Yes, circa £1500. The car was advertised on here for £1650.

Seemingly the budget for this particular challenge is set at £1500 and that more or less bought my car. I'm assuming it's one of their three car (plus one duffer) challenge so putting two and two together, I'm thinking along the lines of a sort of 'budget performance estate car' esque thing as they said they specifically wanted the estate rather than the saloon, though I still stand by my feeling that an 850R wasn't really designed with hippo hunting in mind.

Good job the aircon works/worked.