Well, look what just showed up next to our old friend, the LSC Special Edition. It’s Eugene’s Official Car, the Volvo 240. It is sporting some decidedly non-Eugene rust though, being a Midwest car.
It is still pretty nice, considering it’s been through 25-30 salt-encrusted winters. It is somewhere between the 1983 and ’85 model years; I was too lazy to walk around to the front and narrow it down further. It does have a nice set of Volvo accessory alloy wheels, though!
I had the pleasure of owning one of these for a brief time in the 90s. Great cars. Really comparable with a W123 Benz’s in build quality and durability.
That’s about the right amount of rust for a Mid-West 240. Lemont, Il had scads of 240s that looked about the same.
The Swedes knew how to build them.
The only car that I can remember (in my lifetime) that had the number of groupies that the 240 had were Omni/Horizon fans.
These are still plugging along aplenty around here, as are other variants of the Volvo, speaking of, spotted I think a Duet on Friday on my way home even! It was straight, but original and non restored, looking for a spot on Broadway here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
There is a guy on YouTube who’s dad is currently driving an ’87 240 that has something like over 250K miles and they about a couple of months ago, or was it last fall, had to fix the windshield wiper mechanism, the cable broke.
Call me crazy, but I’ve always loved the 140/240 styling.
These were good cars and the facelift certainly helped the looks Ive just been informed Im driving a Volvo starting on Thursday a bit bigger than this though Im hoping forv460+ hp as any less is not really linehaul capable on the napier/Taupo road so Im now doing NapierHamilton return each night for 3 weekis shame it will be too dark for CC spotting.
Napier-Hamilton’s a fair haul, but the traffic should be lighter at night I hope – and a Volvo truck would be a good way to drive – my mate’s uncle does longhaul in some sort of Volvo (I’m not great with truck models but it’s a cabover and big), he loves it.
Mostly trucks on the road at night I used to run Napier _Tokoroa return sometimes Hamilton return Volvo trucks are nice to drive but Ive never driven one newer than 05 and that was automatic which I do not like still its work and I hope to make enough to register my Hillman.
1) One of the last truly great basic, well-built cars. A co-worker of mine back in the ’90s still had an early-80s one, and although he was making BMW 5-series money, he couldn’t bear to part with his 240. Given that I live in California, I’m tempted to try to track down a rust-free wagon for my next car, given that I’m less than delighted with the evolution of the subsequent generations of Subaru Outback following my ’03. (Maybe a 940, though?)
2) Is it just me, or are cars with Illinois plates the most likely to show up on the West Coast and flout every rule about switching over one’s registration to the local DMV? A friend of mine moved her car out from Chicago and must have held onto the IL plates for three years.
I believe the alloys are from an earlier model; I had a 1978 242 GT that had them, and they were original to the car according to the guy who sold it to me; he bought it as a dealer demo in 1979. Great bulletproof car…
That’s a 1984 or ’85, because the ’83 240 DL still had the smaller wraparound taillights introduced in 1979. I had a 1980 Volvo 242 DL (240 2-door sedan) for 21 years, from 1982 to 2003. It was a very durable car, which is why I kept it so long. It was the base model, with a 4-speed manual (no electric overdrive) and no power steering. I had A/C added later at the dealer (factory air didn’t become standard across the line until the 1985 model year). It had about 245,000 miles on it when I sold it (estimated because of intermittent odometer failure toward the end).
About ten years ago I was on a Volvo lot in Thousand Oaks, CA, helping my mother pick up her first Volvo, when I spied a late 80s 240 wagon on the showroom floor. It was immaculate inside and out. The kicker, besides it $8,000 price tag, was that it had 800,000 miles on it. Yes, that was an 8. The manager was proud of it and told me the family that owned it had just traded it in on a C70 since the kids had gone off to college. He said they’d replaced all the rubber and rebuilt the transmission, but that it was essentially all original.
I’ve wondered since then if it was not a load of rubbish, since I can’t imagine any car surviving that many miles. Then again, that Volvo we picked up for my mother that day is now going strong at 250K and my sister is driving a 740 wagon with over 300k. Still, that’s a long way from 800,000.
A 240 will indeed survive 800K IF its not in the saltbelt and the owner keeps on top of the little niggles. These are the things that make people dump their 240- small, cheap parts that are buried waaaaayyyy behind other parts.
I think that wiper linkage and heater cores/fans are the things that have consigned as many 240’s to the scrapyard as gearbox failures and rust. Both the wiper linkage and heater are behind the dashboard, and are more work to repair than converting a car from auto to manual- believe me- I’ve done both and I know.
However, if you know 240s and do the work yourself, they will last forever. Lokari sell plastic rear fender liners, which eliminate the main rust area.
Here in the UK (and Canada as well) you can get carburetted 240’s, which eliminate all of the problems with the engine wiring and injection sensors. We also have LPG- or propane, which is half the price of petrol, which makes 240’s reasonably economical. I get the equivalent of 50mpg. Granted our petrol is now about $10 a gallon. Say that with me- ten-dollars-a-gallon. Ouch.
Regardless, 240’s are very popular in Europe for one reason- they’re unkillable. In spite of 3K oil changes, I still drive mine like I hate it, and it thrives on hard driving. How many other 32 year old cars can you rely on day in, day out, and know would make it to Mongolia and back if you need to? Mercedei may have better build quality, but they don’t take abuse nearly as well as Volvos.
As for $8000 for an 800K volvo, if everything has been replaced and rebuilt, its probably worth it. I’m sure there’s a buyer who would pay that just for the honour of putting the other 200K miles and having a seven figure car. After all, 5000 euros will buy only an ‘average’ 240 in Europe- it would take over 15K to get a really good one. Only in the UK are they cheap still, mainly because of RHD and the fact that here Volvos have the same image that A-body centuries and cieras have in the US, namely cars at the front of every line of slow moving traffic.