As I write this post I realized that I don’t have great pictures of this car. Sorry in advance.
If you know anything about me by now, it’s that I am always looking for Volvos. Even if I don’t have the cash to spend, I like to see what is out there. Well, this time in 2017 I happened to stumble on the 71 Volvo 164. This time I actually had some money to spend on a car, but didn’t really need a car. At this time, I had a 1971 Volvo 145, 1962 Volvo 1800, 1954 Volvo 444, 2008 Toyota 4Runner, and a 2017 Subaru Outback. Of course though, I got to talking to the seller of this car, and one thing led to another.
The Volvo was in California, and being sold as an original California car. I was a bit concerned about the car since the seller was not a Volvo person like I normally deal with. I reached out on a social media page to see if any Volvo guys were out that way, and would be willing to take a look at this car for me. As luck would have it, a nice guy reached out to me, and said that this car was only a few blocks from his house, and he would love to look at it for me. He came back with a clean report card on the car, and actually helped majorly in the buying process. I felt comfortable sending him the money so he could pay for the car, and he brought it back to his house for a few days until I could get it shipped here to Arkansas. I actually ended up meeting him at the 2017 Volvo national meet, it was a really cool experience.
I did not have a ton of information on the car as far as history goes. All I knew was it was painted not too long ago, and the owner I bought it from, had it several years. The color was actually called California white. I am not 100% on it, but I think this was a white that was made specifically for California. Volvo had another white that year, but I have only seen the California white on cars that were sold in California. As you can see the car also had some awful porta-walls on the tires that did not go well with the car. The bright red interior was a nice touch to offset the white exterior. I had not seen many at all in that color combination.
The 164 like all 164’s had a B30 6 cylinder engine, and like the last COAL, paired with twin carbs. Again, this was solidification that you could in fact order your 1971 Volvo with or without fuel injection that year. The transmission had just been rebuilt on this car about a year ago, so the automatic shifted nicely through the gears. The paint like I said had been done at some point in its life, but was looking a bit flat. The seller had told me that it had been repainted, but I could not really find any evidence of this, and it did not have a clear coat on it. Either the person who painted it was amazing, and did not do any over spray anywhere, or it was a really old paint job and possibly original paint. The interior was covered most of its life in generic seat covers, so the leather was flawless. It did have a few loose seams, but nothing big. You will notice that this 164 is a little different, because of the front bumper scoops down below the grille. This was like that until 1972 when they freshened up the interior and exterior the of the 164. This design is arguably the better looking design because of the thinner bumper and vent windows. I think it looks a lot cleaner than later models. The car looked really regal, almost like a big Mercedes or Rolls.
When I got the car home, I knew I had some work to do on it, the paint was flat, the white walls needed to come off, the stitching on the seat needed some work, and it had an awful rattle when idling. All of these things I knew of course because of my new Volvo friend in California. I could solve most everything, but the nasty rattle coming from the car. It was almost like the exhaust was rattling around because it was loose. I spent a lot of time under that car to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. I could come up with nothing, but I really needed some more space to work. So I called up my buddy David in Clinton, and told him I was coming down with the car to use his lift.
When I got the car down to Clinton the following weekend, we fired up the 164, and drove it around to see what that rattle was. David was at a loss, and so we threw it up on the lift to see if running it in the air would help us diagnose it. We still could not figure it out. We muted it a little when we tuned it up, and got the idle up on the car so it wouldn’t shake as badly. The weird thing is, when you got going the rattle would stop, or if you revved the engine. At idle, it would then start rattling again. I lived with it, now that we got it a bit more silent. I focused on the cosmetic issues. I got as far as pulling the white walls off, and cleaning up the paint. At this point, I was almost done with college, and had a bad accident on my way home that totaled out one of my future COALs.
So my ownership with this car ended very quickly. I only owned it about a year, and most of that time it was in Clinton so I never actually got to drive it really. I was so focused on getting it mechanically sound, and when I needed to sell it, I had not gotten to enjoy the car. David and I could never really figure out what the rattle was, and I never got around to fixing the loose seams. The car still looked better with a shine, and not white walls. It still fired right up after every turn of the key, and drove nicely for as far as I drove it.
I ended up throwing it up on Ebay, and as luck would have it a guy called me after a few days of it being listed, and offered me $5,000 for it. That was much more that what I had paid for the car even with shipping. I also had not spent any money on it, just my time, and I don’t see that as money because I love working on cars. I took the $5,000 offer, and it turns out the buyer was actually only an hour from David’s house so it worked out great. I threw in a parts car that I had so he could take all the parts he needed. As far as I know the guy still has the 164 near Little Rock. I had not seen any recent advertising for it, so unless he sold it without advertising it, I am going to assume he still has it. Looking back, I would have liked a bit more time with the car, but I really had no choice but to let it go. This 164 would be my last running 164 that I have bought. I think it finally did me in.
When you did the tune up, did you do a valve adjustment? I have a suspicion that’s what it needed.
I’m not sure how I feel about the white exterior but I do love the red interior, especially the carpet. That would look good with black seats as well. And the dashboard looks immaculate, so clean and simple. I’ve never really been drawn to the 164s but this one has done more than most to win me over. Now off to find a brochure pdf to look at more new pics…
Looks good with the thick whitewalls. That’s something that needs to return to cars.
Red leather for the win!
No, “California White” was one of the names of a paint colour offered for a fair number of years, not the name of the only place it was offered. More info on PaintRef, and also see AutoColorLibrary’s ’69-’72 Volvo paint chip charts.
1973 was the first year for the straight-across front bumper, new grille, new interior, new taillights, etc.
I had a 79 Omni with the VW engine that had a slight rattle at idle and part throttle. Finally figured out it was a heat shield that had detached itself partially from the manifold courtesy of rust. Took it off and no more noise
Back when the car guys were on NPR a lot of random rattles were traced to heat shields. Reminds me that a source of odd vibrations in my experience is delaminating tire treads.
My take on it’s a little different; I’d say a lot of random rattles were traceable to the car guys on NPR. Opinions differ, of course, but those two seemed much more interested in laffing at their own (nominal) jokes than in giving dependable, reality-based advice. I tried to like ’em, I really did, but couldn’t get past their consistently high proportion of implausible wrong answers.
Opinions will vary, of course. Some people seem to think they were the most funniest guys ever. Some people find something likable about Garrison Keilor, too, and I’ve never been able to figure out what.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Heat shield vibration – yes. I had this a year or two ago on an R107 380SL. It was near the right side exhaust manifold into the forward cat. Tough to get at and right under the passenger floorboard.
The problem with the heat shield guess is that there aren’t any rattle-prone heat shields on a ’71 164.
What was rattling on Connor’s car? Could’ve been any of many things. Could’ve been loose torque converter-to-flexplate bolts. Could’ve been the exhaust pipe hitting the undercar, or another effect of sagged engine mounts. Finding and fixing the problem would’ve been possible with the right amount of diagnostic skill and experience and the appropriate facilities.
I have a lift, and put the car up on it many times. Even ran it on the lift to see what I could find. The rattle was coming from the transmission area for sure. It was not exhaust related for sure. I was on the verge of pulling the trans before I sold it, telling the buyer my theory.
My 1979 Mazda 626 developed a rattle in the transmission, my Dad and I took it apart when we were replacing the clutch anyway (well, he did mostly, I tried to stay out of the way) and it turned out to be a bad needlebearing on the main shaft. We got the bearing off and saw the finish was pitted, however it had also pitted the shaft. We got a replacement needle bearing at the dealer, the shaft itself was too expensive to replace, installed it and the noise went away…for a while, but then the damaged shaft also damaged that bearing again so we just lived with it from them on. It never caused any other issues.
When in neutral stopped at a light (i.e. no load on it) is when it was the worst, kind of a light ringing/rattling noise, once in gear and with load it was much better.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a one series Volvo in white before. I’m not a fan of white as a rule but this I like. It does need the whitewalls to complete the look.
Who’d have thunk it! An elegant Volvo!
Wow, this one hits close to home!
In the spring of 1971, when I was a year old and my sister was 5, my parents bought their first “family” car.
It was a 1971 Volvo 164, (NOT a 164E) and it was white with red leather and an automatic transmission.
It was purchased in San Diego, and in 1972 when we moved to Honolulu, we brought it with us.
Although I was very young when we had the car, I well remember riding around in it. I also vaguely remember it having a manual choke, though I could be wrong.
Our Volvo was distinctive because my parents removed the diagonal cross-bar on the grille, which gave the front end a sort of Studebaker-ish look.
We didn’t end up keeping the Volvo for very long though. My dad was not a fan of automatic transmissions. So in 1973, he bought a 1973 BMW Bavaria which became the car I grew up with. He sold the Volvo to one of his good friends, a fellow Naval officer, Cdr. M.
That’s not the end of the story though. In 1976, we moved to Washington DC, again bringing our car with us. Cdr M. and his family did the same thing a couple years later, and ended up living in the same neighborhood as my family.
Fast forward to the late 80’s and the M’s still had the Volvo. It had become the daily driver of Cdr. M’s son, who was my sister’s age, and they became friends. My sister got to drive our childhood car many times.
So as of 1989 or 1990 our Volvo was still on the road in the DC suburbs. I’m not sure what happened after that, but it’s entirely plausible that it could have been taken to California by Cdr. M or his son, since CA was their original home state.
I’ll say it’s a 50/50 chance that this is my family’s actual old car!
That’s awesome.
I had a 72 blue 164E and can’t
belive how ugly the colors for this car is.I liked the understated look . migjht as well paint flames on it.
In 1989 I had a 1975 164E. Bought it from the original owner in Pacific Palisades. When it drove it drove great however it cost me on average $300 every 3 weeks to keep it running. The final straw was when the drive train dropped out in downtown L.A. I had it towed to it’s grave, or so I thought. About 5 years later I got notices of unpaid parking tickets on it. Luckily I had proof that it had been surrendered.
“Volvo 164. Suddenly, it’s 1961, for Wolseley.”
Probably because of the pre-aged styling, those white-wides actually suit this stately old Gothenburg barge-ette.
A friend of my Dad had one that looked like this one save for floor shift, also automatic and flat door handles. (European model) It had the old style rear lights, fuel filler, etc, which I think were updated for 73. He said it was a 72. Is that correct?
Yes. My folks bought a 1972 brand new. We had it until 1991 and 230k miles. It never even needed a valve job to get there, just a new tranny at 80k and again at 160k. They weren’t terribly expensive — the second one cost about $800 in the early 80s. It was running strong until I was rear ended in it driving to high school one morning. The car was hit from behind while at a stop by a Sentra going about 30 mph. I came out without a scratch and the car even managed to drive to the curb afterward. Great car.
Funny story from when I got my tonsils out (circa 1971) my parents, knowing I was into cars, bought me an issue of Road and Track, where they had a feature “Airconditioning the import” which had several examples of installations of airconditioning which back then was still not very common, they showed a 164, and the caption said something like
“in certain installations, something has to make room for the evaporator…on the Volvo 164 it is the glove box…so they supplanted it with a bin on the transmission hump”.
The original picture in R&T was in black&white, but other than that the picture you have of the dash could be the same one of that car, 49 years later. I must have read that issue 100’s of times (didn’t have a subscription) but still remember the feature. We got our first airconditioned car 2 years later (a ’73 Ford Country Sedan) so airconditioning was a bit of a mystery to me at the time (but can’t live without it especially now we’ve moved to the south).
I had a 70 Volvo 145 that had a rattle I could not find for the life of me till I needed to replace the muffler. The pipe in the muffler had rusted loose on one side and would rattle against the inside of the muffler.