Purchase a 960?

The 960 is a great car, smooth, refined, powerful, luxureous, that said, if you're used to beating on a 240 you'll probably want to skip the 960 and go with either another 240, or a 740/940 with the redblock 4 cylinder. The inline 6 is a strong very smooth motor, but it's rather shoehorned into the engine compartment so working on it is no picnic, also I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep up on maintenance and have the timing belt replaced on schedule, a broken belt will effectively total the car unless you can find a good used motor. Fuel economy is not as good as a 240 either, pretty much expected given the much larger more powerful engine. For towing a camper you might check out a late 940 Turbo, same nearly indestructible engine as the 240 but the turbo adds about 40HP and a big lump of torque stock.

I don't have experience of the 960, but am aware that it uses a more complicated independent rear suspension which the 940 does not.

For reliability I cannot recommend the bulletproof 940 enough.

I found my '92 960 wagon infinitely more reliable and had better mpg (with my lead foot) than any of my previous rustbucket 240s.

If it had AWD, I'd still own it.

I can only add to the other accolades about the 960. It is a very smooth running car with ample power to pull the car along comfortably at high speed. Because the car will be 10 plus years old do look for evidence that routine maintenance has been kept up and consider having an experienced Volvo mechanic do a pre-purchase inspection. He can alert you to potential problems that might figure into the final price for the car.

I really enjoyed driving my 1996 960.