Originally posted by monochrome On my wife’s baby hauler (1989 Volvo 240DL Wagon):
BOXY
YouTube Back around 1990 we seriously considered a Volvo 240 station wagon. Space, towing ability and room for our family for day to day and vacations. Also with a roof rack we could load our 17.5 foot Old Town square stern and have enough room for our 4 hp Evinrude outboard. In the end we didn't get it.
I have had one Volvo in my life. It was a '62 Volvo PV544s with the B18 engine...twin SU carbs. Smoothest, most accurate shifting linkage (good as a Hurst shifter) on the 4 speed, clutch action was easy...not all was rosy as the twin SU's were not the easiest to keep in sync...for me anyways.
That PV's acceleration surprised some domestic cars with small V8's and automatics. Fond memories of that car. Handling and braking was good and I liked the '46 Ford Tudor body design.
The 240 wagon over the years has been subject to transplanted domestic V8's such as the Chevy small block, Chevy LS series and Ford 302 V8...sometimes with a manual 5 or 6 speed. Well done, with beefed up suspension, brakes, cooling, etc... I think this could be a wonderful car . Believe actor Paul Newman had one, with a Mustang 302, 5 speed manual plus aforementioned component 'beefing'.
---------- Post added 03-22-20 at 01:29 PM ----------
Originally posted by gordon_l34 Hi,
The motor was designed by Repco, a motor repairing company here in Australia at the time. It looked the same as the standard 308 cubic inch Holden motor at the time but was actually based on the motor that took Jack Brabham to his world championships. The motor was strong but because the driveline was designed for 240 horsepower and the motor was putting out somewhere around 300 horsepower it was pretty fragile in that area. I used to get about 25,000 miles out of the gearbox so you can imagine the problems on the race track.
To solve the gearbox, brakes and differential problems in 1977 an uprated version was released with a Borg Warner T10 gearbox option, a Salisbury differential and disc brakes on the rear. Peter Brock in 1979 won the 1000km Bathurst Classic Race by six laps and set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap! The road going version of this car did not have the L34 race engine as it would not pass the anti - pollution laws that were brought in in 1976. They were allowed to use this engine on the race track.
Regards,
Gordon.
Sounds like the Rover V8 that was based on the Buick V8 and used in Buicks/Oldsmobiles . Wasn't that what Jack Brabham based his F1 winning Repco V8 on back in the '60's ? Don't know if I have that right ?
We had a '07 Buick sedan that had the Buick 90 degree, 3.8 liter engine. These Buick V6's were based on the old Buick/Rover V8...essentially that engine with two cylinders cut off. Great torque and power and used over here in North America in modified form in everything from Indy cars to drag racers.
Sounds like a wonderful, high performance road car with those upgrade in the T10, uprated diff and disc brakes and I bet the engine exhaust note was one that encouraged you to run the car through the gears at every opportunity.