A hearty welcome to all our esteemed readers to Volvo Week! For the next seven days, our posts will have an emphasis on Gothenburg’s finest. Most everyone has a Volvo story to share, and as cars sold on a reputation for durability over long production runs, they make ideal curbside classics, with an enduring, respectable character all their own. But Volvo means more than just safety and station wagons. Volvo is also about shooting breaks, turbos, performance and style and since we’re Curbside Classic, we can’t ignore all these under-recognized traits (and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the odd 5.0 or Small Block Chevy swap).
As always, a theme week will still include other brands, so it won’t be all Volvo, all the time. We need to play if safe, after all.
Volvos never mind how good or bad they are are known as safe to crash in not really much else, My bro’s neighbour an elderly Maori lady used to drive a Mazda Familia sedan it broke down as they do on a bridge and no start a samaritan offered to jump start her and parked his car nose to nose and was hooking her up when she got rear ended hard both her car and the samaritans were toast the good samaritan jumped off the bridge and was ok eventually everyone involved pulled thru once the cheque from the insurer arrived the neighbour bought a well used but tidy Volvo 850, her motto it happened once next time prepared, The car hasnt missed a beat that I know of it was very cheap for the amount of car leather interior etc all the fruit and it seems a good car.
As a current Volvo owner and Volvophile – let the week begin! Looking forward to some great Volvo stories and posts……..
iRoll. Hehehe
Yeah, baby ! Yeah !!
Daf punk!
http://create.boomerang.nl/profiel/willemvanrooj/werk/daf-punk
Hehehe +LXVI
Ha!! Nice!!
Getting rarer these days!
http://www.marktplaats.nl/a/auto-s/volvo/m808950772-2x-volvo-66-1-3-gl-aut-1977-groen.html?c=a2384ef0ece270f44503df9f8598c624&previousPage=lr
Another Volvo guy here. Though I don’t currently own one, I miss my 98 S70 very much. Especially when I factor in my current daily an 08 Pontiac g5. On my wife’s insistence we retired the Volvo in order to get a newer car and start her credit. She wanted something good on gas and cheap which she defiantly got with the g5. At 30 my wife is a new driver. She’s cheap and don’t like the price of fuel. She is also very short at 5′ and wanted a newer car with newer safety features as she is forced to sit very close to the steering wheel.
I’m on my third. In my immediate family I think we’ve had ten, the 855 T-5R being a thoroughly awesome machine.
Perry,
Thank you very much for creating “Volvo Week.” I’m a diehard Volvo man and have been since I was 17.
I currently have two – a 1991 740 and a 1996 850, and will be picking up a 1982 240 in a few months.
2-series Volvos were the respectable aspirational cars in Maine for a long time. As a yoot I wondered how people could spend so much money on such boring machines, though middle age has helped me get over that.
I think the Volvo ‘philosophy’ of thoughtfully designed and thoroughly built, totally practical cars has a lot of appeal – not that I’ve ever owned a Volvo! Particularly in the 1970s they seemed to be ahead of the game in making solid, comfortable, good-handling cars.
They were very popular in Australia back then, with local assembly helping. In the last 20 years they seem to have been driven or retreated upmarket, and have suffered for it.
Hopefully we’ll see a P1800. Hands down my favorite Volvo.
Yes, I’ve always liked them. Also, there’s that guy by the name of Irv Gordon who has put 3 million miles on his P1800!
A friend had a circa 1980 DL (I think) 241 (maybe 251?) It was a five speed with an electronic overdrive toggled by a switch in the top of the shitft knob, if that helps.
Anyway, it and the old International Loadstar trucks had the smoothest clutches of anything I’ve ever driven. I was very impressed by it.
It would’ve been a 242, 244 or 245 – the last digit in Olde Volvospeak means number of doors!
I started off as a dedicated Ford customer until I quickly realized that for the same money as a used Taurus, I could be driving a premium European make. It’s true that there is no such thing as a “cheap” Mercedes or Audi, but I found Volvos to be different. For one, they’re servicable at practically all repair shops for about the same cost as any Japanese brand, and second, they’re easier to work on than any modern Ford I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of wrenching on. Interestingly, I’m now on my fourth Volvo (a V70 T5) and recently ran into the current owner of my first one (’88 240DL) and it’s still clunking along!
I love watching “The Saint” on MeTv and Roger Moore’s white P1800.
You’re probably aware that Jaguar was initially approached and asked to provide an E Type – and declined. Volvo stepped up and provided several white P 1800s that were updated as the series went along.
Roger Moore liked the P 1800 so much he purchased one – and may still have it……
Maybe we’ll hear more about the Saint’s P 1800 as Volvo week goes on……
That red 142S is a 1971 or 1972 version. I had one in sky blue. What a great car! I only had it a few months before it was wrecked in a T-bone crash (the other guy’s fault). I still miss that Volvo terribly. Best car I ever owned.
Looking forward to this week!! A proud Volvophile here, and owner of the finest looking car to come out of Sweden or a lot of other countries, the Mk1 C70 Coupe! I absolutely adore it, and most other Volvos as well haha.
That’s a rare one.
I really liked the 1st generation C70 coupes, which I think I’ve seen about 5 examples of ever!
I’ve seen a few, but it might have been because at the local Volvo dealer I was there so regularly I should’ve had my own coffee mug there! I remember getting to drive the first C70 coupe they got in. It was an odd salmon color and had black leather. It was a very smooth car though!
Yeah I was in the local Volvo dealer a ton as a kid, and when my mom went in to pick up her new 1998 V70, they had a black on black coupe in the showroom, and I was hooked. I didn’t remember it till I actually went back there years later to pick up this car, but that memory came flooding back! It was meant to be haha. It was my first car, and I’ve had loads of good memories in it. I’ll never sell it.
Curbside Classic effect. This is parked in front of the neighbors house today, where there is normally a Mercedes of some sort. Go figure. More in the Cohort.