If you are of a certain age you will certainly remember this car. There aren’t too many of them around anymore but there was a time, which lasted a long time, when the Volvo 240 was a very common sight on Irish roads.
As a young fella growing up on the mean streets of South County Dublin if you had any description of a Volvo it meant you were minted. My family never had one, but a friend’s did. There was an air of money from Volvo drivers.
Personally I think that times have changed and to own a Volvo doesn’t hold the same esteem it once did. Don’t get me wrong they still make a classy car, but what they’re producing now is that little bit more down to earth.
The 240 was released by Volvo in 1974 and over its 19-year history this vehicle proved to be a massive success with more than 2.8 million of them being produced. On August 21 1974 Volvo showed this iconic machine to the press for the very first time. The motoring hacks present were flown from Volvo’s head office in Torslanda to a small town called Borlange where they had their first encounter with the Volvo 244 GLs – and although I wasn’t around at the time, Volvo has reliably informed me that each and every one of the test vehicles had an orange paint job, as well as an orange interior.
Apparently this was the done thing at the time.
The Volvo 240 was a development on the 140 series, but with plenty of changes. It was 13cm longer and its appearance was inspired by the Volvo Experimental Safety Car (a concept car which Volvo used to develop safety features for their cars).Inside were a lot of changes too – for example the lattice headrests were new.
A lot of the safety features in the 200 series also came from the Experimental Safety Car and for four years at the end of the 1980s the Highway Loss Data Institute in the USA classed it as the “safest car of its size”. In the UK Volvo were awarded the Don Safety Trophy because of their road safety initiatives and because their designs went beyond legal requirements. In terms of safety Volvo would still be considered as a company which offers among the highest of safety standards – especially when you consider that their plan for 2020 is that "nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo".
Over time there were many different variants of the Volvo 240 including a very exclusive coupé version – the 262C – which was manufactured between 1977 and 1981. All 262C models had V6 engines and had standard equipment like central locking, power windows and even electric mirrors (remember this is the 70’s and early 80s when these items weren’t that common in cars). This was a great looking car - and rare too as only 6,622 were produced, most of which went to the USA.
The 626C model was a game-changer
In 1985 the 240 Turbo hit the news in motorsport when Tomas Lindstrum and Gianfranco Brancatelli won the European Touring Car Championship.
The last Volvo 240 was produced in the Torslanda plant in Gothenburg in May 1993. It has now become a bit of a collectors' item. According to Volvo it is still easy to get spare parts – some of which have even been newly produced by the manufacturer.
The keys to the last-ever manufactured Volvo 240 were handed over to its owner at a special ceremony where the CEO of Volvo, Pehr G Gyllenhammer said: "We have had the world's safest car, one of the most worthwhile cars to buy, and a car that is already living legend and will be even more of one in the years to come."
According to the manufacturer the Volvo 200 series is their most produced model with 2,685,171 240s built, and 177,402 260s.
