A nearly-stock Volvo 740 isn’t the fastest rally car. It’s not the most nimble. But it’s cheap, it’s tough, and it’s probably not financially smart for me to think much more about them.
The Volvo 740 doesn’t get a ton of love here in the States, at least in terms of performance builds. We have plenty of other affordable rear-drive old cars that tend to soak up most of our desires for powerslides. BMW E36s are still cheap enough to form almost a protective wall around budget Volvo builds, but in areas where these cars are more common than the next old RWD machine, they get used quite well.
And you do see oddballs pop up every now and then, both here in America (hi Nate!) and also in Austria, apparently. This is Martin & Anna-Maria Ritt’s rally car, not far from stock as video uploader GHrallyemotion explains:
One of the spectators’ favourite rallycars in Austria this year, and also the cheapest rallycar we saw this year. Martin and Angie Ritt show that you can still have fun rallying also with low budget. The car is in almost stock setup according to Austrian M1 regulations, where only suspension, brakes and exhaust are allowed to be modified.
You know how cheap 740s are here in the States? Actually, scratch that. Let me not look at my local Craigslist right now.