Volvo managed to promote the Forties-design PV544 and its Nineteen Fifties-design Amazon descendant all the best way into the mid-to-late Nineteen Sixties in the USA, however these iconic machines have been changed right here by one which started a line of even extra iconic Volvos: the 140 Series. Beginning with the 1968 mannequin yr, the 140 turned obtainable in the USA as a two-door sedan (the 142), a four-door sedan (the 144 and 164), and a station wagon (the 145). These rear-wheel-drive, brick-shaped automobiles later advanced into the 200 Series and its heirs, with the final of the breed showing right here within the type of the 1998 S90/V90. That is a number of historical past all wrapped up in a single car, and so I used to be happy to search out this 145 in a Denver-area automobile graveyard earlier this month.
This automobile rolled out of Göteborg with a gleaming coat of Mörkgrön (dark green) paint and, according to this construct tag, was constructed to California specs. Sooner or later, it made its option to Colorado.
Only a few US-market automobiles had six-digit odometers previous to the center Nineteen Eighties, however Volvo felt optimistic about their automobiles’ longevity (at a time when reaching the magical 100,000-mile mark was one thing that not often occurred with non-Mercedes-Benz automobiles) and so now we will see that this automobile made it nicely previous 200k miles.
The 2.0-liter pushrod four-cylinder engine on this automobile can hint its ancestry again to the Amazons, P1800s, and PV544s of the early Nineteen Sixties, and it was rated at 115 horsepower. A six-cylinder model of the 140 sedan, often called the 164, may very well be bought right here as nicely (although it had few American takers).
However wait— what’s that Detroit-looking two-barrel carburetor doing on an engine that is alleged to have a Stromberg 175?
Sure, it is a GM-spec Rochester clone constructed at the ancient Bay City Plant (now often called GM Powertrain) in Michigan. Earlier Volvos got here with a pair of British-made Skinner Union sidedrafts, which could be pretty painful to maintain working proper, however maybe even the less-oddball Stromberg proved an excessive amount of problem for whoever put in this carb (which was meant to go on engines with far more displacement than a Volvo B20).
Transmission selections within the 1969 140: a four-on-the-floor manual or a three-speed automatic. This automobile has the handbook.
The inside is fairly thrashed, as is often the case with the 140s I find throughout my junkyard explorations. These automobiles had (and have) a fanatically devoted following in America, and a shocking quantity are nonetheless being pushed day-after-day right here.
The 140 stayed on sale right here by means of the 1974 mannequin yr, after which it was changed by the 200 Sequence. Should you suppose this view of a 1969 145 seems rather a lot like the identical view of a 1979 245, you are proper; the 240 was kind of the identical automobile because the 140 from the A pillars again (and it was constructed all the best way through 1993).
The tales this automobile might inform!
How are we going to get mobilized if we won’t even get out of the car parking zone?
Here is one other batch of Volvo 140 adverts from world wide.
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