(first posted 11/20/2012) I was aware of the 264 TE Executive Limo (picture after the jump), but not of a related wagon version, the 245 T. Obviously built on the same 131.6″ wheelbase, and using the same rear door, the T has a station wagon rear end. Not unlike the Checker Aerobus, but lacking a third (or fourth) door. My desire for a Volvo brick wagon has been slowly building, but this is the crescendo. I want one! Just the ticket for hauling 10′ pipes, trim molding, and such, nice and dry out of the rain. Four cylinder, stick shift with overdrive, little hubcaps…
Here’s the Executive, which was the favored limo of political big-wigs in the former DDR (East Germany). I guess neutral Sweden was ok to buy limos from. Both of these long-bricks were made between 1975 and the early eighties.
My old 240 wagon was by far the best around town hauler I’ve owned. I loaded an entire shipment of wood flooring, adhesive, and cutting equipment for our old 4 bedroom house in the back of mine, and was still able to roll up the windows and lock it up while I ran into the market for beer. And for only $300, I didn’t even mind having to occasionally bang on the catalytic converter with my rubber mallet to keep it from rattling. Imagine buying a new car that you could fix with a hammer. Just dreaming…
I love those as well. I believe the Swedes call them “långskorpor.”
There was also a 145 Express which had a raised roof, but you probably know that one, Paul.
Google images: https://www.google.dk/search?q=volvo+145+express&hl=da&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=9Zc&rls=org.mozilla:da:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ef6rUOnMC4fcsgan6IDoCw&ved=0CCMQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=673
How about this ambulance version which has the stretched wheelbase with the tall roof!
http://www.google.dk/imgres?hl=da&safe=off&client=firefox-a&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:da:official&biw=1280&bih=673&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=qRZHscoAvkub7M:&imgrefurl=http://imcdb.org/vehicle_53988-Volvo-145-1968.html&docid=y5PRy9RhNtT57M&imgurl=http://www.falck-grindsted.dk/volvo145a.jpg&w=774&h=525&ei=tE2sULyaGeyZmQXuv4DICg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=582&vpy=300&dur=1093&hovh=185&hovw=273&tx=122&ty=106&sig=113110129626121322579&page=1&tbnh=144&tbnw=207&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0,i:88
Neutral Sweden indeed. I never understood this designation.
I would love an extended 940 wagon with a turbo 2.3 red block, but with the 16-valve head. Hell, I’d love any 700/900 with such a motor.
Well, it just means that they have most often stayed neutral in conflicts; during the Cold War they did not actively pick sides clear enough that a Volvo would be considered capitalist.
Sweden supplied vital raw materiel to the Germans but OTOH, supplied intelligence & part of their merchant navy to the Allies. Hard to say whether this balanced out.
To be fair to the Swedes & Swiss, neutrality is easier said than done, for it’s hard to resist common interests. Before WW2 the US unofficially supported Britain & France, & supported China by imposing punitive embargoes on Japan (which provoked the Pearl Harbor attack). This refutes the misleading claim that the US had an isolationist stance.
Wow! That aerobus is exactly the same as my 245- down to the creamy white paint and commando bumpers. I sure hope it has power steering though- I’d hate to try to park that thing without it- a standard 245 is heavy enough.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-and-nice-early-1979-Volvo-245-estate-LPG-manual-m46-OD-/271105886750?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3f1f2b8a1e
(Sorry these are the only pics I could link to- this is a real sale though- please don’t bid for fun- remember, its in the UK!)
And yes- the for all of their political issues, the DDR leadership did have very good taste in cars. For his personal limo, Hoenecker had a stretch mk1 Citroen CX built for himself. Similarly, the other western cars imported were Citroen GSA’s for the ‘well connected’ middle classes or those with friends in the west. There was even something like a Service Merchandise catalog that sold everything from western clothing to caviar to cars to kit homes. This catalog, I think it was called Genex, was for West German family members to order ‘gifts’ for their East German family. Yes- your Ossi relatives can now be dressed in the same hideous 1980s fashion that we in the West would love to forget today!
Here’s a pdf you can download and enjoy!
http://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/blogg/?p=5185
Thanks for the link!
When I visited Ostberlin in April 1989, I was surprised to see so many fourth-generation three-door Mazda 323 (FD) and unusual higher number of three-door Peugeot 205 with DDR numberplates and country stickers.
I noticed them to when visiting East Berlin back in 87. Mostly in red!. Perhaps they were imported for loyal party members.
Orrrrrrrrrr….
That has crossed my mind a few times…
Intriguing! I knew about the 264 TE, had forgotten about the stretch wagon. At first I was unsure about the shared wheelbase, as the distance between the rear door and wheel arch is greater in the wagon. But now I see the 264 TE has longer front doors, whereas the wagon has the standard length ones. The back doors look like they might be the same.
Just a theory, but I’d bet the wagon is actually using the coupe quarters between the door and the rear wheelarch. The shape of the back of the lengthened rear door appears to match that of the front door, so by using the coupe quarter they’d get all the door latching/structural parts needed without great expense. What do you reckon?
Oops, meant to attach the pic:
Funny, I have never noticed the longer front doors on the limo. I bet they are standard front doors from the two-door 240’s. But I know the specially made rear door is the same unit on the 245T/264TE, and they have the same lengthened wheelbase.
Same here. That is very well spotted.
Looks to me like the 245 has a wheelbase about 6″ longer than that on the 264.
I think that’s purely an illusion created by the the 264 having the longer front doors, thus the rear door is closer to the wheel arch.
They were indeed the Swedish aerobus. I don’t know how many were made, most likely in the hundreds or low thousands. I remember a figure of 5000 all in all, but that number seems a little high. Most were used as rural school buses, filled with children. As school is mandatory, getting to school is as well. In Sweden, if you lived further away than say, 5 kilometres from school, the school paid for the bus fare if there were regular bus routes, or even chartered busses if there were many kids along that way. But if you lived even further away with no bus routes, taxis were used. So, they had these farmed out taxi routes, picking up kids to and from school. These days, I guess they use minivans, but in those days, there really weren’t any good vans for hauling people.
Most 245T:s and 264TE:s were built by Volvos official coachbuilder, Yngve Nilssons Karosseri. They also made hearses and ambulances and such, based on Volvos. The work seems pretty good, they didn’t make the work easy for themselves, with the different door lengths and such, seems like pretty high standard for being coachbuilt.
I was hoping you’d fill us in on the details. Thanks.
Did you notice that small raised section on the roof, directly behind the rear door? Odd.
I think it’s there to hide the weld seam. They probably used standard roof sections, but where they met, the curvature differed. It’s a cheap solution, on the other hand, it’s a pretty long roof section to have stamped out as a single piece.
‘So, they had these farmed out taxi routes, picking up kids to and from school.’
I had completely forgotten about the taxicab rides at a deaf school outside Freiburg. It was economically cheaper to contract with taxicab company than private buses for ferrying two or three deaf kids between their homes deep in the rural Black Forest and school.
for the sake of history, most TEs were assembled by Bertone in Grugliasco (Turin, Italy).
http://www.volvobertone.com/7enstory.html
my 1977 certainly was
Happy rolling
Alex
Another very curious East German special is the 244 DLS. Effectively, it’s a 244 with the front of a 264. East Germany was on a drive in the late 70’s where they wanted to be seen as succesful and progressive, and Honnecker simply thought there were too few luxury cars out on the streets. We can’t embarass all the tourists, now, can we, when they are so used with all that western decadence. So, they special ordered a thousand of those cars, just to dress up East Berlin with a little flair.
Hastily google translation from an article I found on the subject:
What is this weird Volvo 240? Well it is a 240 model that was built specifically for East Germany, and it is not any less strange either. How come they sold Volvo in the closed communist state that had a highly regulated market that did not follow the normal rules of the game?
Short on DLS model; so it was a bit of a hybrid, a 244 that got lesser equipment, a B21 engine at 100 horsepower, four-speed manual transmission without overdrive and the front of the 264 model. “S” stood for Special, or Sondermodel. It was limited to five different colors, and you could only buy one if you both had owned a Wartburg or Trabi at least a year and only if you lived in Berlin. And could afford it too, with 42000 East Reichsmarks, this was the most expensive car ever in the former East Germany.
So this was a car only for the technocratic socitety around party elite in Berlin, the ones allowed to make money, that is. And even then it wasn’t easy to get hold of a Volvo, for the state ordered only a thousand of them, pre-ordered for a month in 1977. No advertising was done and non-Berliners couldn’t buy one.
But what prompted this? It was not so much as a courtesy of the party to placate their friends in the aristocracy around them, but more of a propaganda campaign. At this time was a small number of other cars from the West was imported in the same way, including even a few hundred Citroen GS. The basic idea behind was that it would “look” good on the street scene.
Berlin was frequented by many journalists and diplomatic people from the west, and the Propaganda Ministry thought those cars would “dilute” the domestic fleet, hence Berlin would seem more open and Western-oriented. Hence the restriction of these cars to East Berliners.
244DLS:
Fuel filler on the back? (next to the license plate) Strange.
This red Volvo is is registered in the Netherlands. That cap is for LPG fuel valve.
The Dutch has a thing with LPG and CNG since they are cheaper to operate. Hence, many vehicles have been converted to LPG and CNG without any regard to cosmetic appearance. It’s like a huge blackhead on a pretty face. Impossible to ignore…
That is one thing I hate the most about scouting for vintage American cars from the 1970s-1990s in the Netherlands. Lot of excellent choices except for horrendous LPG refuel valve in the rear fender, ruining the look.
Wow, never heard of that one! Thanks for sharing that.
The East Germans used Volvos and I think Citroëns. Erich Honnecker favourite was the Volvo have I read somewere. At the DDR museum in Berlin you can (at least could) find a stretched Volvo 244.
Thinking of the 264 TE, Volvo did a lengthened 960, and a lengthened S80 too. The lengthened 960 has a much longer rear door and the window in the C-pillar is blanked off. Two bucket seats in the back too, with a console between them, and I think the bench was still an option. They were available new to special order here in New Zealand, and we’ve gained a few more since ex-Japan. The Swedish Embassy had one which I have photos of at home – I’ll post them later. I’ve never seen the lengthened S80, but it’s featured in the S80 brochure I have. I think it was purely a really long rear door, will hunt the brochure out and take a look. Both the 960/S80 make interesting updates to the 264 TE idea. Don’t know if they did a 960 aerobus wagon, but I’d buy one!
I always liked those, they were called the 960 Executive, and could be special ordered through your usual Volvo dealer. There was the regular version with the blanked off C-pillar and longer rear door, and there was also a limousine version of that car. They also made armoured cars. The Executive series was quite common on embassys around the world in the 90’s, as it was a factory approved limousine that wasn’t so conspicuous. Especially suited for countries without a car production of their own, and without the need to affiliate themselves with any particular political flavour. I think the S80 Executive was a cheaper solution, they didn’t do any lengthening at all on that one.
Model year 2000 S90 Executive from my files. I think this was the embassy one. I see another the same colour around town, and have also seen them in silver and dak blue.
Executive rear and badge:
Personally, I prefer the Value size.
That’s not value size you need a full 10 doors for value sizing.
Oh Yeahhhhhhhh.
‘now that’s a knife’
crocodile dundee.
Ingvar, brilliant observation about the 264 TE probably having the coupe front doors! Very cost-effective solution, and as with possibly using the coupe rear quarter, it means they got a properly engineered B-pillar for the door latches etc. It’s a bit hard to tell from the iinternet pics, but I reckon it’s the 245 that’s using the coupe quarters between the door and the wheelarch:
It seems that you are right. It’s just a question of ordering the right bits from the factory and then weld it all up together. And the longer front doors on the limousine makes for substantially better proportions.
Saab had a similar factory approved limousine, the Saab 900 CD, made by their Finnish subsidiary Valmet. The first version was curiously enough based on the five door combi coupe, and therefore had a fastback. The extensions were made with 10 cm in the front door and 10 cm in the back. Though they had to specially make all their doors, so that was a vastly more frustrating experience.
When the sedan version came out in the beginning of the 80’s, they made the CD by adding 20 cm to the rear door only. It is a very unusual car, and why they even bothered boggles my mind. The story goes the heads of the Wallenberg family wanted to be driven in something nice, and as they owned Saab outright, no other car would do.
It would be fairly simple to weld a normal sedan B pillar at the required point on the sill panels, on the days before the one-stamping body side panel.
This is quite interesting, I dare say the turning circle would still be smaller than some normal fwd cars! The airport shuttle version could really use a longer rear overhang to fit a few more suitcases.
I saw a 1971 Falcon “airport shuttle” wagon just like this a couple of years ago, I will see if I can dig up the photo.
The 10 door Travelall I posted above was done in a similar fashion. They were set up very modular. Looking at the factory parts books shows that the same doors, sills, jambs, floor sections, and cab back were used on 2dr and 4dr pickups and Travelall. So it was just a matter of custom making the top and just welding on a few more “B pillars”, sills, and floor sections until they reached the desired length.
There’s a lengthened Saab 9000 for sale locally actually. Pic below, and the trademe link is here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/saab/9000/auction-517345492.htm
I assumed it was factory as it makes very clever use of factory parts inside and out (especially the trim on the inside of the middle door), and I wasn’t sure why any aftermarket customiser would bother!
at the Dunedin Railway Station? Classic.
Lol, yes, well spotted!
I used to think I knew a lot of Volvo trivia, but while the limo and its East German heritage seem vaguely familiar, the wagon is new to me. Thanks again to CC for the education!
And while I’m trawling through the files, here’s a 263, a 143 and a 243. All mix&match factory parts – although the 243 has had a roof chop (unless those are the 262 Bertone front doors and windscreen?). Not quite as useful as the aerobus perhaps!
Yeah, I was getting to that, but you were faster. All those cars are homebrewed. As Volvos were so common in Sweden, it was also the most common car to customize. Also, when something is so ordinary, many people wants something that sticks out from the crowd. There was never an official two door wagon, so quite many cuztomizers went that way. Often by dropping a V8 into it at the same time. Another car that was never made officially was the 165, so a couple of them has been made, retroactively, as a sort of counter factual exercise. Though I heard of a guy working at the Volvo factory that drove around in a quite peculiar three door Volvo. A mistake had been made with the fittings of the side pressings, and the car was fitted with two doors on one side, and one door at the other.
Yes, there’s a website all about the three door 240. Can’t find the link to it, but I saved the pictures a year or so ago. From memory the site debates whether the car was really accidentally made that way or not.
I also just found in my files a 162 (in the Volvo museum I think), as well as one of the 165 wagons you mentioned. The wagon is an excellent customisation, as they’ve even used the longer front end/guards of the 164. I must say, I do love it when people mix & match existing factory parts to come up with something different. Very creative, and a glimpse into what might have been.
Just found an interior shot of the 143 wagon among my files too:
And finally, from my Volvo files: a non-Bertone 162 (with the proper longer front end/guards) and the 263 in the Volvo museum.
That 162 is gorgeous. The Bertone-roof version which while I don’t care for the blocky chop-top is much better than the production 262C.
The 263? Eh not so much. Looks like a Chevy Citation hatch.
The love child of a brick and a Chevette :/
If you like the 162, maybe I can tempt you with this convertible version I just found hiding in my files!
The 263 looks like a GM/Opel/Isuzu T car.
There were still a few 245 T taxis in service in Sweden when I was living there in the 1990s but they were on the way out. A neighbour of ours has one as a daily driver, he had bought it from the local taxi company. The car was in a rather sorry state and its mileage was gigantic, but the guy couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it because he found it so convenient (which it was! You could haul just about anything in these beasts).
Haven’t seen one of these for years now.
BTW the – excellent – Swedish classic cars mag “Klassiker” has just restored a 165 (now THAT would be a dream car of mine. Always had a soft spot for the 164). The result is great. Check out the video here (hope the link works).
http://www.klassiker.nu/video/film-volvo-165-sista-rycket-2936
Thanks for posting the link – it did work! It was fascinating to watch the work on the car – made me wish I understand Swedish!
Id rather drive Old Yella,. your Ford pick up is much more useful than this Paul.
Interesting…look at the rear doors.
Paul once pointed out that the Volvo 240 wagon’s doors tapered down toward the rear to follow the sedan’s roofline, so there was an odd compromise in the wagon’s door frames.
Not so with the coach-built 245T, or 264TE, for that matter. The rear doors on both of these are definitely flat-topped, probably because the extended roof was relatively flat.
Yeah, that was me:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/the-rear-door-dilemma/
However, I think the 264TE was prioritized, and the 245T was made as an afterthought. As you have pointed out, the rear door is completely custom made, though probably made out of different factory parts. But it seems Volvo and Yngve Nilsson put a lot of thought and work and expensive solutions into the TE. Like using longer front doors, a longer custom made roof section without weld seams, the custom made flat topped rear door, the filled in part between the rear door and rear wheel, and so on. All elegant solutions made to look like a first class product.There was definitely some money put into those solutions.
The 245T seems to be made more on the cheap, using more off the shelf parts, like the 2-door rear quarters, as NZ Skyliner has pointed out, and with the raisened roof band to hide the weld seams between the roof sections, and so on. My thought is they made it as an afterhought after having made the TE. They already had the lengthened chassis and the specially made rear door. Why don’t graft the wagon end on to that and see what happens?
My apology, Ingvar…I should have taken the time to look up that piece before misattributing it to Paul!
No need to. Being mistaken for Paul is actually an honour…. 🙂
Just noticed something Ingvar, the longer rear door is exactly the same length as the coupe front door. I’d wager they share the inner stampings; even the skin could be a modified coupe skin – with no taper to the window sill line it’s be relatively easy to modify I imagine. Ties in well with the using factory parts theory. 🙂
How about a 6-door 1985 LeSabre?
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/3411570330.html
Converted by Armbruster/Stageway Inc, of Fort Smith, AR
That is very tempting. Being the Olds motor it wouldn’t need a new transmission to fit it with a proper Buick 350.
455 🙂
“Volvo did a lengthened 960, and a lengthened S80 too. The lengthened 960 has a much longer rear door and the window in the C-pillar is blanked off.” Anyone got any photos of those?
By the way, there was a factory-built 243? 0_0 I’m just now hearing about this.
Also, was there a 160-series limo in the vein of the 264 TE? Because I found this photo on the internet a few years back, and that’s sure as hell what it looks like. That is, unless someone went to the trouble of creating it after-market, from a coupe and a sedan put together…. Any thoughts?
Hey Ryan, nice pic of the 164TE! I’m pretty sure that’s factory as well, but will have a trawl through my brochures to find out.
There are pics of the lengthened 960 (the 960 Executive) in one of my posts further up this page. The photos are of the former Swedish Embassy 960 here in New Zealand – but there are a few more here ex-Japan. I think I have more photos of it which I can post.
The 243 wagons are all custom-built, they weren’t factory. They’re basically a 245 body with the doors removed and the longer coupe doors installed along with some of the coupe’s side sheet metal.
Cheers! Scott.
The 3-door 240 sedan was allegedly factory-built, there’s a web site about the blue one I posted the pics of above, but I can’t remember what the site name was and haven’t found it again. The site basically debated whether the car was a genuine factory mistake, or whether it was custom-ordered that way. From memory there was some debate about whether several had been made that in the factory way for a police department order.
Where are the 960 Executive photos? 🙂 I’m looking around…
The 164’s wikipedia page doesn’t mention a limousine version of the car but it might be that it was only made in small, small numbers.
Pics updated and added below. 🙂
Weird – the pics are there for me! But I’m always happy to share car stuff, so have added a few images. It’s a year 2000 model too. You can see the Executive badge near the right hand taillight. Here’s the exterior:
And here’s the interior:
Since when was Sweden ‘neutral’??? They were and are members of NATO.
I recently saw three, yes three 264TEs for sale. They had originally belonged to the Swedish embassy in London and then been used for weddings. All were in reasonable condition, two metallic light blue and one dark blue. They all sold for around $1500. Peanuts!
Sweden isn’t and has never been a member of NATO! They cooperate with NATO, but they are not a member: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52535.htm
That got labeled as a 2000 S90 in the earlier post. I thought we were talked about the 960 Executive? I have a naive question: Is there a middle seat in back, i.e. put one leg on either side of the center console? Anyway they’re all cool cars. I’d love to have a 900 series car someday. An 850 would be really nice but they’re still too expensive. My last car was a 1991 740. I was fortunate to have a manual sunroof. Apparently the electric ones LOVE to break.
I’d love to pull up to a Volvo show here in Oregon in a 264 TE. People would FLIP. If there are any in the states, its probably in the single-digit numbers. Speaking of the 200-series stretches, does anyone have interior photos of the stretched wagon? I’m curious what it looks like.
Anyone come up with any information on the 164 limo above? If its not factory, then somebody did an amazing job creating an aftermarket custom car. Its sweet.
Sorry for the confusion – over here the S90 was just a new badge on an otherwise unchanged 960. The photographed car is registered as an S90 that was new here on 27 September 2000. That date itself is odd, as wikipedia says S90/960 production ended in 1998 with the exception of ambulance/hearse chassis. Maybe the limos hung on longer. As an aside, I see Volvo China currently builds a stretched S80 – the S80L.
The S90 in the photos I posted is registered as a 4-seater, so in NZ at least there’s no legal middle seat as such. I believe a conventional 5-seater was an option – I think I have the brochure, but if I do it’s in storage. Both the outboard rear seats feature electric slide/recline – the button is visible on the left-rear seat squab’s right corner.
That 164 limo you posted still has me puzzled though! There was a 164 TE, but it was a standard-length top-spec version of the 164E. My 70s Volvo brochures are in storage, so I haven’t had a chance to check them yet sorry, and the internet has been no help – although I did find the picture below of a 165 T wagon. The distance between the front door and the wheelarch of the 164 limo and 165 T will help establish if they use the longer 164 front end (the 164 had a longer wheelbase, all of it between the front door and front wheel, than the standard 140/240/260 series). It’s hard to judge from the pics, but I think they probably do. If they do, I’d have to guess they were factory – I can’t imagine any cloners going to the hassle of having to replace the entire structure forward of the firewall! (but stranger things have happened!)
The bench seat was an option – and quite popular in Europe. During my years at Volvo I’ve seen only one 960/S90 Executive in this configuration with two seats and central console and around 10 units with a bench.
The good news is – the “bench” was one of the best seats I ever put my backside into. It was a proper old fashion style sofa with springs and coconut mats instead of typical foam only. It was just great.
Funny thing – despite seeing so many of them in service area of four Volvo centers I never checked the quality of the front seat. Never, ever.
Isn’t it funny that if you see a real limo you are not interested in the conditions the driver is working in? 😉
Looks that there was additional version of the 960/S90 limo that I wasn’t aware of…
It was called “Volvo 960 Executive Royal” and was built by Nilsson factory for Volvo. The add says that the total quantity was limited to ca. 100 units. The difference to a regular 960 was the 15 cm extended cabin, different rear doors and added small window in a C-pillar.
Look at the details in the add below
http://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=225487374&scopeId=C&isSearchRequest=true&damageUnrepaired=NO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&makeModelVariant1.makeId=25100&makeModelVariant1.modelId=23&makeModelVariant1.modelDescription=executive&pageNumber=1&fnai=prev#
The longer I look at it – the more I am convinced it’s “just” a regular Executive…
The good point is – the rear “bench” is pretty well visible in the picture.
The funny thing I noticed regarding the S80 Executive – out of 13 cars of the first S80 generation that are advertised at mobile.de site (the biggest used car site in Europe) only ONE is a real Executive. You can distinguish it from regular cars looking at two things:
1. crown badge on a reader door pillar,
2. bespoke upholstery with contrast stitching and piping – not available in normal S80 (visible in a picture).
All other adds are… just a scam 😀
It’s crazy that people tend to tell lies in a case of an old and not very popular car…
Gorgeous 😀 And I’m on board with your guess: The LWB wagon above and the limo in the photo I posted had the same wheelbase (chassis). The 164 sedans had a longer wheelbase than the 200 series sedans? Huh, I wouldn’t have known. Where was your 165 T photo taken? The Volvo Museum?
Yes, the 164 wheelbase was roughly 10cm longer than the 140/240/260 series (2700mm vs 2604mm). The additional 10cm was all in front of the firewall/bulkhead, and was to accomodate the longer straight-6 engine. The 264 had the PRV V6, so the standard wheelbase was sufficient. The pic below shows 164 (top) and 144 in profile, the extra 10cm visible:
The 165 T photo came from German wikipedia – http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Langer_Volvo_Kombi.jpg No info is given on it, except the description: “Long Volvo Kombi”. Apparently the photo was taken in 2005 at a German classic and vintage car show held annually in Essen, and called the Techno Classica.
Well, after a couple fun hours trawling through German and Swedish websites, the only other info I can find on the 165 T is that it’s a genuine Volvo built ‘T’ from the windscreen back. According to a Swedish Volvo fan, the ‘T’ wagons with the raised bit in the roof above the rear of the rear side door frame means that’s a Volvo pressing. Whereas Nilsson’s Special Vehicles made similar bodywork extensions and “did the roofs smooth, without the ugly interface”. But all the Volvo fan sites agree that they can’t agree if it’s a Volvo-built prototype, or a 245 T with a 164 front end.
Paul Niedermeyer , are you looking for one ?
Here you go :
http://www.blocket.se/jamtland/VOLVO_245_LIMOUSINE_nybes_55455886.htm?ca=11&w=3
Pretty cool ;
.
I missed this the first go ’round .
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As we have multiple Teenaged Foster boys , this would be the perfect solution if that I tried Vovos and didn’t like them in the end .
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Some years ago i found a Mercedes W123 240DL , long body Diesel Taxi , I wish I coulda afforded it at the time , it had jump seats etc. .
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-Nate
For those of you that would like to see how those extended 264’s were dancing in the skilled hands od East-German government drivers – please take a look:
It’s quite a thing to watch a set of dancing Volvo’s and a Citroen CX. Despite being FWD the CX was doing pretty OK in evasive maneuvers…
Nice video
My inner child snickered at the title as if you looked at it with a quick glance it seemed to say “farting in the DDR”
Anyway, it is interesting how the DDR leaders embraced the Volvo 240 when they could have had any car from the Eastern Block. What was it about these cars that interested them? I had a 1990 240 DL and I loved the thing but it is not by any means high luxury.
Hmm, I’d drive one.
Love it! But gotta be rare. We had a ’83 245 for a spell and it was almost as capacious as the ’73 Plym Custom Sub we’d had previously, due to it’s functional boxy shape. The only imported wagon to touch it for hauling was our ’83 504 Peugeot diesel wagon, also hugely spacious inside, but nothing like this 131″ wb Volvo- wow!
Our town (Scarborough Maine) used to have 244 police cars!
I’ve heard that such things existed here in the US, but have never actually seen a 240 cruiser. I wonder that sort of municipal decision-making process went into choosing those over some easier to acquire domestic product.