This conversion is very well done in terms of quality of the realisation and in terms of design.

I mean the extended fifth door is well intergrated to the body of the hatchback car. Some other cars like Renault 25 or Lancia had the same kind of conversions during the eighties.

Now it was quite expensive and made by small companies.

Now Volvo at that time was absolutely not supporting them. Most well known of this small companies attemps was the cabriolet version of the 480 coupe: well designed, well built but refused by Volvo. Too bad that good ideas are not better supported.

Eventually that kind of conversion totally collapse by the early 90ies and to me no other models are on the market today. It is true that theere are lots of breaks in a wide range of various models today anyway.

I like this kind of ideas and I like the typical look of the Volvo (which is not frozen but subtily evolves between the generations).
I do say I find this car very interesting and not ugly at all but this is not the main quality of this model overall.

Would it be possible to judge a complete car on something else that the only shape and look at it leads to very simplistic shortcuts.

when Volvo released that coupé in the 80ies it was very modern and fashionable but with the typical touch of Volvo style. Engine and some other parts like on the other models of the 400 family were borrowed to Renault and fortunately were quite reliable.

All in all this coupe is just an alternative choice to the japanese at that time (Honda for example) in terms of design and reliability. Not bad at all.
I do assume I like them and if they are now of course old fashioned look and admit they still have a strong personnality compare to the lots of very common cars