Inspired by Dave Leadbetter’s piece last week about how safe classic motoring is nowadays, and the photo of the Volvo VESC (Volvo Experimental Safety Vehicle) at the top of said piece – which looks pretty much like a regular Volvo to me – my eyes (safely shielded by spectacles, themselves with lenses of shatterproof glass) fell upon the perfect car for safe classic motoring and driving through walls. Yes, it’s a Volvo – we seem to be having a bit of a Volvo theme this week.
Now I’m not a big fan of the marque – the only Volvo I would ever buy would be a P1800 – but that’s neither here nor there. This Prime Find Volvo is surely the dream car for anyone who wants to run a classic but would like to feel secure and protected from other road users/traffic/lamp-posts etc. It’s possibly the perfect classic safe bet.
The company’s image has always been one of conservative stolidity and reliability and above all, safety – which is what made the P1800 such a surprise – and their advertising has always pushed these qualities relentlessly. Indeed, I’ve always felt that Volvo is to its fellow Swedes SAAB as Rover is to Triumph, or Mercedes-Benz is to BMW – steady and reliable versus architects’ office cool, upright and suburban compared to a more cosmopolitan nature, middle-class respectability versus blasting down the autobahn with lights flashing.
But before we come to our actual Prime Find, let’s take a brief look at the Volvo 240’s background.
Its predecessor was the 144, a car my father owned in the early 1970’s, fulfilling a long-held ambition for him, and a car I learned to drive in when not in my instructor’s Triumph Toledo. Already a very square three-box in saloon form, the 244 stayed true to the 144 but with even more safety built in.
Evolution
Launched in 1974, the 200 series model ranges – the 240 and 260 – were evolutions of the 140 and 160 series. Body styles were largely similar – particularly unsurprising in the case of the 240 as it shared the same bodyshell as the 140 – but with large energy-absorbing bumpers front and rear and a rearward-sloping nose being the major visual changes, adapted from the Volvo VESC ESV pictured in Dave’s piece.
Spot the difference
Underneath, MacPherson-type front wheel suspension, rack and pinion steering and a new family of 4-cyinder engines completed the facelift.
The 240 was made available with 2, 4 and 5-doors – the estate becoming a firm favourite with antique dealers – and engines covered a wide range, depending on market, but the mainstay was the 2.1-litre 4-cylinder overhead camshaft units re-developed from those used in the 140 series by Volvo for the new car. Power output for the 2.1-litre ranged from 97bhp in carburettor form, rising to 123bhp when aided by fuel injection. This engine was later expanded to a capacity of 2.3-litres in 1978.
The 240 series was launched with the following models – 242L, 242DL, 242GT, 244DL, 244GL, 245L and 245DL. The nomenclature was very logical – the first 2 for 200 series, the 4 to denote number of cylinders, the third digit representing the number of doors. Trim levels of DL (De Luxe), GL (grand Lux) and GT (Grand Tourer) were equally clear, though I’m not convinced that any 240 series would qualify as a Grand Tourer in the more accepted sporting sense, but it was all very understandable; you knew what you were getting, whichever example of the line-up you bought. Later additions to the range included GLE (Grand Luxe Executive) and GLT (Grand Luxe Touring).
The 240 was regularly updated through its almost two-decade long production run, with one of the more visible changes being to the headlights – originally round units within a square setting, these were replaced with bigger, rectangular lights, removing possibly the only non-linear aspect of the entire exterior of the car.
There’s no doubting the 240’s success – almost 2.7m were built, with the 244 accounting for over half that figure, with 1,483,399 manufactured. The Autocar tested a 244GL in April 1975 and praised its handling, ride, seating, spaciousness, ventilation and heating, while also putting in a word for the improved performance of the 244 over its 144 predecessor, although this was the fuel-injected model. In general, they felt the 244 was a significant improvement all round over the 144, which you could argue is as it should be, but isn’t always.
Despite their generally non-sporty image, Volvo has made many successful forays into the world of motorsport, in rallying as one might expect with such rugged cars but also on the track in touring car championships – who can forget the sight of Rickard Rydell tearing it up in the 850 in 1994? – and the big, boxy 240 saloon was also campaigned on the race track, seeing off Rover Vitesse’s and BMW 335’s when winning the 1985 European Touring Car Championship in the colours of the Eggenburger Motorsport team, with Gianfranco Brancatelli and Thomas Lindström as team drivers. While this on-track success surely didn’t encourage many regular Volvo drivers to take their road-going saloons to track days, it didn’t do the company’s image any harm at all.
So we come to this week’s Prime Find, which is a 1978 Volvo 244DL.
It’s for sale with a private vendor in North Wales – who has only owned the car since May of last year and who themselves bought it from someone who only kept it for a few months; apparently, they were supposed to buy an estate and got an earful when they returned home with a saloon…surely not the first or last time someone has been given a verbal kicking for coming back with the wrong car.
Before passing the Volvo on to the vendor, the previous owner spent £4,000 bringing the car up to “near concours” condition, with a long list of works that you can read about in what is without doubt the longest and most informative classified advert I have ever seen – over 1600 words, longer than the average ViaRETRO piece; certainly longer than this one.
What makes this Volvo – christened “Sven”, a fine Swedish name – a Prime Find? Well, let’s see – to begin with, it has an asking price of a London pint of beer (when pubs are open) under £10,000 which puts it well under our theoretical budget of £20,000. It seems to be in excellent condition – claimed to be in “perfect mechanical and cosmetic order”, in fact, so a fine contender for the Hagerty Concours de l’Ordinaire – with a very complete history, and has covered an exceptionally low mileage of 38,445, making it barely run-in for a Volvo. On digital paper at least, it has a lot going for it.
The Cimarron Brown (steady, chaps!) paintwork is believed to be all original, and blemish-free, with no signs of dings, dents or rust, and although a 1978 car, it is a ’79 model year, and has the rectangular headlights rather than the round ones. The brown upholstery is unmarked, as are the door cards, headlining and carpets. The car looks exceptionally clean, I have to say.
Lots of original documentation comes with the car including Volvo owners’ handbook, stamped service book, old MOT’s, and documents from the supplying Volvo main dealer, invoices for parts and labour for the work carried out on it, as does an outdoor waterproof car cover – not that this Swede has spent much time in the great outdoors.
As usual, we have borrowed a number of photographs from the advert, and you can read the full essay – sorry, advert – here. Also as usual, if “Sven” is the classic for you, we recommend arranging an inspection before you buy.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same. Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk