Grassroots Motorsports 700 Series Volvos

[bigdaddylee82]

I was killing time in a Barns & Noble a week or so a go and discovered a magazine called Grassroots Motorsports. It was/is new to me, and I throughly enjoyed most of the articles I thumbed through. Admittedly though it's about 60% advertisements, but what magazine isn't anymore? They got my attention enough that I've been digging through old articles, builds, and the forum of their website, where I discovered this gem of an article on Volvo 700s. I thought I'd share:

Yes, the 740 Turbo looks like the typical staid, suburbia-bound Volvo—a fine upstanding citizen. But in its heart it’s a hellion. If it were a person, it would wear conservative navy suits, keep the lawn neatly trimmed and take great pains to religiously hide a penchant for tequila shots and Motörhead records.

It’s the sort of car that really confuses armchair sociologists who like to view a person’s car as an extension of the phallus. Jaguar E-Types they can figure out. Corvettes they’ve got nailed. What’s a fella trying to say with a Volvo wagon?

grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/volvo-turbos/


- Lee

[matthew1]

"What Volvo noticed was this: They were sitting on some slightly underpowered but seriously overbuilt four-cylinder engines, an engineering department that had tons of experience in turbo-diesel freight trucks, cars that could use a performance boost, and an image that could be perked up as well. It was a natural fit.

So in 1981 Volvo began putting Garrett T3 turbochargers in some of its 240-series cars. While the concept seemed solid, the definitive Volvo turbo was still to come in the excruciatingly square shape of the 700 series, which was introduced in 1983." -- nice summary of how Volvo got started with turbocharging passenger cars.

Great article, thanks for sharing, Lee.

"...tequila shots and Motörhead records." Haha, that's hilarious because it's true. People ask what I drive and I say "Volvo" and they kinda look for a while, then I say it's very fast, it'll catch you offguard. Then they tend to nod -- they're happy with the answer -- or they're even more confused because Volvos aren't known to be fast.

[FCPEURO]

+1

That was a great read. They definitely hit the nail on the head.

[Ozark Lee]

I have memories of driving by a cop in my 740's and I swear they would just look at the radar and say to themselves that it couldn't be right - that was a Volvo. My mother in law had a medical issue out in the boonies of Western Kansas and the nearest hospital was 60 or 70 miles away. My father in law got kinda riled up when he looked at the speedometer and my wife was doing 120 mph heading to the hospital. I wasn't there but she said it drove like a dream at 120 MPH so she just kinda ignored him and soldiered on. This was back in the dark days of the 55 MPH national speed limit.

Both of my 740s had 5 speeds but they were different. The first one had an electric overdrive where you pushed a button in the middle of the stick to get to 5th, the second one had a true 5 speed.

Both of the 740s were on lease programs so I never had them long enough to have the wiring harness fail or the headliner fall off.

...Lee

[FCPEURO]

My 240 had the M46 transmission like your first 740. I have to agree that the old bricks loved driving at over 100 MPH. TBH, all of my Volvos loved to be driven over 100 MPH.