Mine's even the same color! What a lovely machine. I can't wait to be blasting down B-roads in the old roofracked wagon of mine at inappropriate speeds.

in a manual, this is the perfect 1st car for a 16 year old boy whose testosterone outruns brains and skill, like i did. this is exactly what i would have my kid drive for his first car.

From the mines of the cold northen Sweden came this iron that was shipped along the stormy coastline in the dangerous Baltic Sea. Crafted by the mysterios goths in dungeons of Gothenburg. Were they cast a spell in the church of the Fish upon this mashine.

Of course it will last long, it is from another world

GOOD LORD, NOT ANOTHER VOLVO LOVE FEST..

@smsolo1:
I've had that thougt for years. Of course by the time any spawn of mine are driving, I expect gasoline prices to be north of $10/gallon

@oldskoolparts: Yes! and in fact this time, we won't use protection. You might want to look the other way.

@oldskoolparts:
Volvo : Boxy but good!.
[en.wikipedia.org]

Shame about the US spec lights.

Any reason why European rectangular/rhomboid/trapezoidal lenses were routinely replace with twin headlights?

Legislation, conservative design aesthetic, or something else again?

Actually, cars of this age still look pretty good here in Blighty.

Unlike some I could mention.

This is one of those cars that has "Egghead Democrat" stenciled secretly somewhere on the frame. A friend of mine who owned (and loved)one of these (not diesel, though) in stern Volvo white, always said it "looked like an Amana Upright lying on its side." Spartan quirkiness. The anti-voluptuary staff car. Nordic wallflower with hidden virtues and talents. And yet, and yet... It has taught us lessons in rugged, gravel-flinging-down-a-country-road, keep-plowing-through-the-snow-drifts, dogged, thrifty, reliability and (within certain bounds) performance. I say all this having never owned and having never had a particular love for Volvos.

These cars have much in common with that pesky bug that you keep stomping on but it just won't die.

And in 2089, some crazy hoons will resurrect the old tank for some sort of futuristic race involving sub-$100,000* beaters by installing a 7.0 liter hyperdrive module under the hood.

*Current rate, based on inflation

I will never like these Volvo's (and anything they produced since this model)
This car was and is pure design bordom.. when in high school, 50% of the teachers had one.. with their dark green sweaters with leather elbow patches.

@sos10:

What did the men wear?

ah... in the late 80's my second car ever was a '76 242 coupe.
Handed down from father to brother to me, she was Maaco sky blue over black leather, sported a sunroof (on a swedish car?! and people say Volvos had no whimsy), only a trip through Bertone's shop would have raised that Volvo higher on the p-magnet scale (re-calibrated for Volvos, of course).

The acceleration was suitably impotent for a budding hoon, the swaybars must have been the size of toothpicks, but it got the job done (cheap, semi-interesting transport).

cheers to Volvos of yore

@Stoatmaster: US Law. Only sealed beam lights were legal in the US up until about 1985.

@JantheMan: Dude, that's one wacky National Anthem you got there!

Kind of fun to see the contrast between the Cadillac's "8.2 Liter" badge (earlier in the week) and the deep-into-malaise, ultra-wimpy Volvo's which declares "2.1"

I've always liked these... there's a '240 Classic' (which is apparently very rare) that parks near my apartment in Montreal. I always look at it when I walk by- it's even got wood trim inside. I do think they look better with the round headlights (like this one above), and that shade of yellow is very cool.

Both the 200 and 700 series Volvos tend to have a way of being elegant in an understated way, something it seems they're trying to bring back in the newer models. The new S80, in white especially, seems to fulfill that- very clean and minimalist.

@Nurburgringer: Does yours have the seats with the big red stripe down the middle (I've seen that on the '81 242GT)?

I've developed a bit of a soft spot for the 240s, that hasn't quite passed on to other Volvos (although my inner yuppie likes the 740 Turbo Wagon).

$6,595

Money well spent.

THE ONLY SWEDISH BOX I LIKE IS THE KIND TIGER WOODS IS MARRIED TO

@oldskoolparts: Win despite caps.

Sweet.

@MUSTANG, POLAЯ EDITION: It is not my words.....it is written in fish blood all over the car at the chuch of fishes right before shipping.....I know the master priest....His name is Glenn

sorry, i have to revert from work related typeset to here and it gets lost in the keystrokes..argh

A high school friend of mine had a very similar 244, and referred to it as the "Flying Cardboard Box". Sums it up pretty well. Dem boxes could fly thru the twisties (once you got some momentum going).

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think Volvos are terribly uninteresting. I think they're at least a little cool, but every Volvo sedan made from the mid-seventies to the early nineties look exactly the same.

Whenever a Volvo shows up on DOTS, I'm plagued with disappointment.

Damn- why did I give up on my '78?

Oh yeah, because we have a much more aggressive species of tinworm here..

10 years ago, these late-70's examples were still very common on the roads. Nowadays, they're not so as much, and the junkyard supply is getting slim. I say the smog retirement is what's doing them in ... that's how my uncle got rid of his 244.

The B21F isn't built for speed, but for durability; forged crank, big main bearings, and plenty of meat in the block. Stout enough that iPd's had a bolt-on turbo kit 4 years before Volvo offered a factory version.

Nonetheless, I did get my '79 245DL up to 110 mph before. Took a while to get there, though.

@Maymar:

nope, the interior was black as s winter's night in northern Sweden.

After the car died (ok was killed by me attempting to emulate Per-Mikael Carlsson in a snowstorm, when even <90hp can niitiate lurid drifts... that end in at the trunk of a large tree) I made an office chair from the driver's seat and a solid wooden base. Volvo--rific :)

@Northstar:

Nope, that's just you right there.

@west-coaster: You have to remember that on the European market this was actually a rather large engine.

@Maymar: That interior is specific to the GT models only. In the US that was little more than an appearance package, the rest of the world received a 140hp high compression B23E motor to go with it.

@altdude: Classic was the only trimline offered in '93 as they were dumping all the leftover parts. Only special feature is the classic badge and a very ugly strip of fake wood on the glovebox.

Commando bumpers, check, quad rounds, check, mustard yellow, check... this is the perfect candidate for a V8 conversion because everyone on the road will HATE you and it is very funny to watch the reactions of other drivers when an obnoxious 240 tries to move at the same or faster speed than they do.

@Northstar: They look similar because they are! The 240 series was in North America for almost 20 years (1975-1993) and if you include the 140 series it evolved from, it's 25 years of having the same basic design. Sure, there were evolutionary aspects, but nothing revolutionary throughout its run.

In stock form, they're not so interesting. Modded, things can get a lot more interesting, whether it be bigger turbos or V8 swaps. Unlike the newer ones, these bricks are RWD.

Lose a race, the opponent is like "yeah, I won an old Volvo". Win a race, the opponent is "OMG, I LOST TO A OLD VOLVO!"

I saw what I hope was a tongue-in-cheek bumpersticker on one--instead of "Baby on Board" it read "Intellectual Elite on Board."

Brave souls, in any case, to sport that.

@TurboBrick: They weren't exactly "dumping all the leftover parts" in 1993. The "Classic" series marks the very last batch of production of 240s.

@west-coaster: 6.1 liters difference in displacement, but only 67hp difference by 1976. HUGE torque difference, but only 67hp more out of 6.1 LITRES more engine?!?!

Can a car designed to last basically forever really be considered a survivor?

The thing's just doing what a bunch of Swedish engineers in white lab coats intended it to.

Love these things though. To this day, I regret buying one of the later 940s when the dealer had two perfectly good 240s parked right next to it.

This is the last Volvo that was truly cheap to maintain, with the 700, everything on the cars started getting more expensive with each successive model.

@P161911: It's actually only using one litre for make that extra 67hp. The other 5.1 litres is used to crush pinko commies.

@smsolo1 : This is my first car.

Well, OK, mine's an '89, and thus half as cool... and the extra power from the B230 is negated by the slushbox...

This one probably has a better interior, though.

@JantheMan: No wonder mine has everything except brakes...

I'm having a flashback to when my parents bought a '78 version of this car, in the exact same color...they kept it for 20 years, and other than having it re-painted Babyshit Brown in 1987, never did a thing to it other than routine maintenance. Someone in Michigan is probably still driving it.

My mom had a '78 245DL wagon when I was a kid (traded in her Mazda RX-3 for it). Had the 4 speed with O/D, white with blue vinyl inside. Man that was an awesome car. She put almost 300K on that thing without a rebuild. Ended up trading it in on a damn '87 Town Car POS. I had some serious good times hooning that Volvo around in high school. Now Mom's driving what I'd consider that Volvo wagon's true spiritual successor, a Forester Turbo with a stick.