Volvo managed to offer the 1940s-design and style PV544 and its 1950s-design and style Amazon descendant all the way into the mid-to-late 1960s in the United States, but those legendary machines were being changed right here by a person that began a line of even more legendary Volvos: the 140 Collection. Starting off with the 1968 design yr, the 140 turned obtainable in the United States as a two-door sedan (the 142), a four-door sedan (the 144 and 164), and a station wagon (the 145). These rear-wheel-travel, brick-shaped automobiles afterwards advanced into the 200 Collection and its heirs, with the really previous of the breed appearing here in the variety of the 1998 S90/V90. Which is a good deal of background all wrapped up in 1 car, and so I was delighted to find this 145 in a Denver-space automobile graveyard before this month.
This automobile rolled out of Göteborg with a gleaming coat of Mörkgrön (darkish inexperienced) paint and, in accordance to this build tag, was crafted to California specifications. At some stage, it built its way to Colorado.
Really couple US-marketplace vehicles had six-digit odometers prior to the center 1980s, but Volvo felt optimistic about their cars’ longevity (at a time when achieving the magical 100,000-mile mark was something that not often occurred with non-Mercedes-Benz motor vehicles) and so now we can see that this auto created it perfectly earlier 200k miles.
The 2.-liter pushrod 4-cylinder motor in this automobile can trace its ancestry back again to the Amazons, P1800s, and PV544s of the early 1960s, and it was rated at 115 horsepower. A 6-cylinder edition of the 140 sedan, recognised as the 164, could be ordered in this article as very well (though it had handful of American takers).
But wait— what is that Detroit-on the lookout two-barrel carburetor carrying out on an motor that is meant to have a Stromberg 175?
Certainly, it’s a GM-spec Rochester clone built at the historic Bay Town Plant (now known as GM Powertrain) in Michigan. Previously Volvos arrived with a pair of British-built Skinner Union sidedrafts, which could be very unpleasant to hold doing work right, but perhaps even the less-oddball Stromberg proved as well much stress for whoever mounted this carb (which was meant to go on engines with a great deal much more displacement than a Volvo B20).
Transmission decisions in the 1969 140: a 4-on-the-flooring guide or a a few-velocity automated. This car has the handbook.
The interior is rather thrashed, as is usually the scenario with the 140s I discover throughout my junkyard explorations. These autos experienced (and have) a fanatically devoted adhering to in America, and a astonishing amount are continue to staying pushed each and every working day in this article.
The 140 stayed on sale below by means of the 1974 model year, after which it was replaced by the 200 Sequence. If you consider this perspective of a 1969 145 seems to be a ton like the exact same look at of a 1979 245, you are suitable the 240 was extra or much less the identical car or truck as the 140 from the A pillars back (and it was developed all the way via 1993).
The tales this vehicle could tell!
How are we likely to get mobilized if we won’t be able to even get out of the parking great deal?
This is a further batch of Volvo 140 ads from all over the environment.
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