If you are a part of one of the many Volvo For-Sale/Wanted groups on Facebook, you have probably seen someone tagging the group “All Volvos Are Only Worth $500” in the comments below a listing. The page’s title holds episodic truth, but nevertheless, you will see the page tagged in anything from rusted out 240s to pristine P2R manual wagons.

Regardless of what others may think, older Volvos are beginning to appreciate in value. You can see in this blog post, “Are Volvo’s Safer Bets Than Wall Street?”, Volvo wagons and performance models have kept their value quite well. So, it would be expected that the most expensive Volvo for sale EVER is a wagon, right? Well, the Volvo in question is in fact a wagon, but the price tag does not necessarily reflect the trim level it came as from the factory.

Last week, the most expensive Volvo to hit the market was listed at $20 million. From what we can tell, this is a base model V70 from 1998. Not one that might be found on the list from our previous blog post. The car’s price tag isn’t even due to crazy-low mileage. It’s being listed for its license plates.

This Volvo is special in one way, and one way only. It was one of the first cars to receive vanity plates, and this lucky owner was able to get their hands on a set of New York plates with the tags “NEW YORK”. You can buy replicas of these plates at souvenir shops in the city or even as one internet stranger commented, you can buy theirs for $19.99 which reads “N3W Y0RK”. Not quite the same though, if you ask me.

This brings about some questions though. Who else out there might have some extremely valuable vanity plates? Or other features that might be worthy of fetching millions of dollars? All I know is if you do have something you perceive as valuable, be prepared with thick skin if you post it in one of the Facebook groups because you never know - someone might just think your Volvo is only worth $500.

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