There’s nothing like internecine Scandinavian warfare when it comes to mad sleepers: hot on the heels of last week’s Saab 99 rocketship comes this Volvo Amazon. Definitely not your granddad’s Amazon.
In spite of its ferocious name and its compact but good looks, the Volvo Amazon is not a sports car. Far from it: the Amazon is a Swedish family sedan built half a century ago. With its small Euro engines, it took inspiration from Sweden’s glaciers when it came to acceleration in spite of the curb weight of 2,400 pounds, a helium balloon in these times.
Not this particular Amazon, though, put through the paces by the Getaway in Stockholm people. Instead of the original car’s double-digit amounts of horsepower, Linköpings Motorsport’s mad creation has a full five hundred at its disposal. Combine that with the delicate curb weight and the sight of this cute little box hurtling itself along forest roads suddenly makes sense.
And as for the handling? “It’s like a snake on a hot summer day,” is how the video’s narrator puts it.
There is something incredibly delicious about this Swedish school or performance tuning. It makes you shudder just to think what these people could do to yet another Swedish car: the mighty Koenigsegg! Christian von Koenigsegg’s earthbound fighter jets would probably reach for the skies in no time.
Photo Credit: klareralt/Flickr
Hat tip to Máté Petrány.