After a three year hiatus that included a worldwide pandemic and a long-distance move across the country, I’m excited to be back with a new series of COALs. Neither the pandemic nor my relocation from Minnesota to Washington State changed my love for automobiles – indeed, I now live in one of the world’s prime locations for vehicles long departed in other parts of the country. The Pacific Northwest (or PNW as the locals call it) is almost like a nature preserve for cars rare and old.
For my first post of the new series, I want to tell you a love story that started in the great white north of the upper Midwest over 14 years ago and continues to this day. A tale that transcends time, space and language – I’m talking about the fact that I really, really like old Volvos. Maybe it’s that no nonsense squared-off look. Or the connotation of Volvos with urbane sophistication that developed during the 80’s and 90’s – the proverbial college professor in tweed jacket with elbow pads car. I have owned three in my life – a 1990 Volvo 240DL wagon, a 1996 Volvo 850R wagon and (currently) a 1994 Volvo 940 sedan. Each had a different personality and represented some aspect of what I like about cars overall. Let’s start with the first one – the 240.
My sons and I have debates all the time about the use of the terms “icon” and “legend”. What makes a music artist one and not the other or both? In the automotive world, Volvo managed – perhaps unwittingly – to create a vehicle that fits both terms. I’m not going to duplicate the many posts that already exist on the long-running model line – except to say that any car that could hang around for nearly two decades of production with still strong demand nearly 50 years after it first hit the market has something going on. After I sold my first automotive legend (or icon) – a 1983 Mercedes Benz 240D sedan – in the fall of 2009, I managed to fall under the spell of a locally-owned Swedish Brick in the form of a blue 1990 wagon.
The wagon had been owned by a single older woman in my leafy neighborhood in St. Paul. I had seen it at various times out and about – and it was pristine. One day, I saw a flyer on the community bulletin board in the local coffee shop advertising the for sale for $2500. This gave me the chance to see the car up close and take it for a spin.
Since I love wagons (see my 2000 Passat wagon post here), this car was kind of a Holy Grail. Solid, yet charming. Spacious, yet easy to maneuver. Vintage, yet practical. Millions have used Volvo wagons for all sorts of purposes and, with two grade-school aged sons and their friends, I could use the funky, rear-facing third row seat that attached to the floor in the cargo area to ferry them around. Once I started the car and heard that agricultural grumble from the famous Volvo redblock 2.3 liter four-cylinder, I was hooked.
Now, for all of the claims of longevity, the 240 is not without its quirks. Like the fuse panel located in the front driver door pillar under the dashboard where it can easily get damp. The prior owner had a 10 pack of different fuse sizes and I definitely used them when something weird happened. The wiring harness that degraded due to movement from the rear hatch hinge. The overdrive button that mysteriously activated and caused the car to rev high on the freeway (with a telltale up arrow on the dashboard). The a/c that worked – or not. The seat heater that looked liked it was on but didn’t warm up. None of these were fatal – rather, they added to the charm of the car.
I got compliments everywhere I went with my 240 wagon. People offered to buy it. Told me stories of how so and so got hit and walked away fine due to the solid body structure. The solid Swede – while never the fastest or best handling car – seemed to reflect the values of my upper-middle class Nordic neighbors. (They weren’t all Nordic, but it was Minnesota after all.). A solid no no-nonsense car for folks who didn’t like to show off.
Sadly, the wagon’s solid body structure was put to the test the next summer when a local college student in a Dodge Durango ran a stop sign and slammed into the front passenger side. The car wasn’t driveable and got towed to a local body shop. The insurance company couldn’t find a lot of comparable sales and totaled the car, sending me a check for $2100. I was in mourning. This was the second car I owned to meet an untimely demise. But I was smitten by the Volvo wagon bug and, later that summer, resumed my search for another example. What came next was, for Volvo, something completely different.
As I wrote about in several of my own COAL entries, I have owned somewhere above 40 RWD Volvos, the vast majority of which were 240-series cars.
I will forever contend that the Volvo 240 is the second best car ever built, behind the Mercedes 123 series, and the overall best car ever built in terms of value per dollar. Yours looks quite cherry.
Nice Brick!
The “owned by single older woman” scenario seems to follow many of the 240 series Volvos still on the road. I hear it so often and it seems to be true. Heck, I have a good part of the interior of one of those cars installed in my 1976 245. I’m not sure why her car was in the salvage yard, but the interior was mint (for what was a 40 year old car at the time) because apparently she seldom used it…and no one ever sat in the passenger seat.
You’re in the right part of the country to locate another “real” Volvo if you ever get the urge to re-brick. 🙂
Old Volvo bricks seem to have survived well throughout the PNW. Watch for a future COAL about one of the local samples in my fleet.
Our Volvo experience dates to Dec 1970, 53 years ago, when we bought a 3 year old 122s (aka Amazon in the EU) with 38k miles, a 2 dr with 4 spd manual, from Champion Ford on rt 40 in Catonsville MD. A great car that we drove for 10 years and 220k additional miles with no incidents that only a guardrail during a snow storm could stop. 4 Volvo 240s followed it over the next 35 years, but after 1993 and the demise of the 240 model, Volvo made no car that interested me. Fwd? fugeddaboutit. I’ve toyed with buying another 240 if the right one presents itself. And I’d say it’s the most practical and family car ever, no exceptions; the B21 will outlast the MB gas engine (had one of those too). The SAAB 99-900 is next, but less practical given their finicky aspects. Long live the 240!
I don’t recall ever seeing one of these with the rear facing seat up. Is it just me, or does that look like one very uncomfortable place to sit?
As an ex-Volvo employee (1976-2008) and a fellow CC contributor, I can’t wait to read more of your work. Thanks for posting!
Brick love, a still powerful phenomena here in the PNW, but they are starting to show a definite decline in numbers.
Finding a clean example without lots of issues is harder than you’d expect nowadays. Lots of well-used ones around – sometimes to the point of almost no return.
The sad part about owned by a”single older woman” is that in the case of my Mom, she drove her 245 from new in 1986 until well after she shouldn’t have been driving. After several fender-benders which she hid from me, she totaled it in 2010 in an at-fault collision. Fortunately no injuries. 275k pretty good miles out of it, which was her third car, all Volvo, since 1960. A friend’s mother drove her 245 “home” after an errand, except it was towards a former home 400 miles away. That fortunately ended OK when she realized something wasn’t right when she needed gas about 200 miles into the trip.
I know most of us have different perspectives on old when it comes to cars, but to me an “old” Volvo has pushrods, SU carbs and a very long gearshift. Anything with an overhead cam and round gauges is new; and FWD or AWD is late model. 😀
Oh, I like it and feel sad for it’s very unfortunate demise which it didn’t deserve.
Really enjoyed this. I was not prepared for the ending. I also had no idea these had those rear-facing seats in the wayback! One learns something new at CC every time one clicks on an article.
Congratulations on your move to Washington State. I have known several MN expats that end up in Washington and they generally love it. Are you east or west of the Cascades? During my last trip to Seattle around 15 years ago It was great to see oddballs like a Subaru 360 zipping around town and no one seemed to notice.
I live in the Puget Sound area on one of the peninsulas and work in the city. Lots of cars around that I hadn’t seen in ages back in the upper MW. No salt and generally temperate climate does wonders for automobiles.
Why is it always the cars we love that get hit and totaled (for far too little money)? There have been plenty of cars I would gladly trade for an insurance check, but none of them ever got hit.
Your Volvo follows the template of every nice older car I ever found: a nice, older, middle-income, long-term owner.