I have just come back from a trip to Gothenburg, where my primary aim was to visit the 76/77 343 in the Volvo museum (I'll let other people fight over the exact model year). And I wasn't disappointed!
Here are some teaser pictures:
After a bit of lunch we decided to ask the museum staff if they'd kindly let us behind the cordon to get some pictures of the back and other side. Well the kind museum staff did more than that and let me have a look inside and under the bonnet. So here are all my many pictures in all their glory for you to enjoy:
As you can imagine, I was very happy. The most surprising thing was just how awful (and brilliant!) the interior looked - both in terms of brown "aesthetics" and quality (bearing in mind this car had only travelled 94km!). And most surprisingly, just like every other early 343, the steering wheel edge had faded - despite being indoors its entire life. Every plastic part, pretty much, is brown. I love it!
I particularly liked the push-button light switch, which is a very early feature.
Here are a few pictures of the rally 343 they also had:
Just a small piece of advice, if you do ever visit the museum and follow the tram & bus directions from Gothenburg, do make sure that you get a return bus ticket, as there is nowhere for you to buy one at the museum bus stop unless you have a Swedish mobile phone, and Swedish buses don't sell tickets!!
In terms of Volvo spotting, I only saw 1 340 in three days in Gothenburg, but there were a handful of 240s, and hundreds of 700/900s.
It doesn't look like it would last very long at all!
Then again it was about as far away from that one condition wise as you could get! The lovely blue paint was almost all gone under grey rattle can due to various bits of rust and 'incidents' and where it hadn't (the roof and middle of the bonnet!) even that was totally crazy paved laquer by the time it was stolen. The interior was very ill fitting in places, the air vent grills and seat back winders broke if you looked at them and the plastic edging on the seat seams broke and stabbed you in the legs if you wore shorts! The dashboard/ centre console palstic went very soft in the sun and was ill fitting. After 10 years the seat fabric broke down in the sunlight and vapourised. As for rust resistance...well better not go there 
All I need to do is weld together that Mk1 shaped rust in the garage and......
Got carried away with the photos!
