This car, the Volvo 245, is the essence of Volvo. Whenever someone mentions Volvo, whether in mixed company or among fellow gearheads, this is most likely the image floating in everybody’s heads. This is Volvo distilled into its most functional form. Volvo has lost its way a bit in the last fifteen years. If it wants to get its mojo back, it could do worse than using the original 245DL as a template. …….Now, the 240 was a boon for Volvo, and was incredibly long-lived, lasting from 1975 to 1993 with relatively minor changes, but it was certainly not an all-new car. The Volvo 140 Series, .. was the platform upon which the 240 built. ……When the 245 came out, I’m sure even Volvo didn’t know just how long it would endure. With the exception of another freshening in 1986 and a driver’s side airbag added in 1990, the 240 carried along all the way to 1993.  It was THE Volvo, and whenever someone mentions how tough and reliable a Volvo is, I bet they’re thinking of one of these. So, Volvo, how about a retro 240 for 2012? I would be among the first in line.

>>>… There are only two bad lines on this car.

First, the droop in the rear upper door. I understand this one, because it is just a manufacturing tradeoff to allow use of sedan doors on the wagon.     
>>> i can’t agree. the rear door droop, as you call it, adds character. sort of like the cindy crawford’s mole <<
…The second is the rear wheel opening. It may be an optical illusion, but the shape of it seems somehow off. Other than these two niggling points, this is a brilliantly styled car. Almost timeless.

>>>   My brother drove a 240 sedan, dark blue with a dark blue cloth interior, for years, from 1987 until 2003. Solid as a rock, never missed a beat. He cared for it well, it still looked showroom fresh when he finally traded it on…

>>> I’m still trying to figure out why we never had a Volvo wagon; if I could re-write history, it would include at least one or two.

>>> THEY DON’T EVEN SELL A WAGON. What a damning thing, to abandon the essence of a brand, the THING you stand for.

>>> I want one. In fact, I’ll take four…one for every member of the family.

>>> Finally, my car on Curbside Classics. …. I honestly cannot think of any other 30+ year old car that is capable of 20K annual mileage, and still allows owner servicing. Mine is very durable- not always reliable, but it has always given me a few days notice of a failure. They tend to break the same ways- fuse connections, alternators, oil leaks, heater cores, speedometers, but once you know the foibles, you keep spares on hand and get adept at swapping parts.

>>> sorry if this insults anyone…and I know it will but….these things are turds!

Reliable, sturdy, bricks…whatever it is you want to call them but they never seemed much better than driving a truck to me. These and Saab 900′s were the “thing” to have in my High School back then…I never ever  understood it.

>> The 240 series cars are the ultimate Volvo in my eyes. I’m … GM freak but having been around these a lot in the past (ex-boss, ex-girlfriend, ex-best-friend) I’ve really grown fond of them.

I particularly like the slash grille, boxy styling, and nerdy dash layout. ….. Oh yeah, I like the fact that they painted those 4-cylinder engines red. Looks cool. ….. You say that I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.

>>> Thanks for writing that up Tom, quintessential or perhaps even archetypal indeed.

>>> Finally, I picked up a 1980 245 very similar to the one pictured above and a 1982 244, which now has 345,000 km on it. Tanks…. every one of them with excellent heaters. My 2 latest Volvos are a 1996 850…a girlie car….. and a 1988 744,which introduces a whole new level of “tankdom” to Volvos. None of these cars has ever let me down…..Never had an engine, transmission, or major power train issue with any of them. And you can work on them…..Only serious problem with the 240 is the heater fan motor burns out and is a nightmare to change out….. If Volvo is listening, bring back a retro 240 with the 2.3L four banger……I’d buy one tomorrow….

1982 Volvo 244DL – Best Value Box

Pop quiz: What is the most boring 2012 model car in existence? The Camry, you say? Well done. Now, what was the most boring, competent and efficient car of the 1980s? For those of you who missed the ’80s or were too young at the time to remember them, may I present the 1982 Volvo 244DL. It’s not a hot rod, not fancy, not exciting. But by God, it was competent, comfortable, and you never had to fret over it breaking down or needing constant mechanical attention! There was good reason why in the ’80s, Volvo was known as “the car for people who think.”….. My parents were Volvo people. Starting with the ’73 1800ES …..to 245DL, they were a practical choice for a young upper middle-class family with kids in the plan for the near future. Safe, reliable, well-built. European, but not flashy or pretentious… This was nothing new to Volvo Car Corporation. The Swedish company made its bones in the North American market with sensible, roomy and reliable sedans and wagons, starting with the Amazon… making even more inroads with … 140 Series. Despite the no-nonsense design and sensible shoes marketing, Volvos were

never cheap…. The 1975 240, itself … was about the same size as a Plymouth Valiant or Dodge Dart, but pricewise was closer to a larger Oldsmobile Cutlass or Eighty Eight. But for “Volvo people” like my folks, the extra money was worth it for the peace of mind such a car afforded…..   Another major boon was the wonderful glass area. A tall roof and thin pillars were great for passing and merging, and the ample room inside

COMMENTS

>>> In 1980, Lisa Birnbach quite possibly did more to spur the sales of this car than anyone in history, featuring it as de rigueur transport for the Madras- and Lacoste-wearing set in her opus, The Preppy Handbook. And with that, another quirky niche vehicle turned into a status symbol for the well-heeled masses…

>>> In the 1970s, I think that there was only one family that I actually knew who owned one of these. And they were of swedish background. 10 years later, they were all over the place. In the 80s, my flight instructer was a young swedish guy (named Lars, of course). Before coming to America and getting into flying, he had been a mechanic in Sweden. I told him about my then-current fascination with Saabs. He rolled his eyes and said “Get a Volvo instead – much better cars – except the 6 cylinder.” From one short sentence, a summation of all wisdom about swedish cars.

>>> I find nothing boring about the 200 series Volvos. In fact, they strike me as one of the most distinctive, interesting cars built in this time period. 80′s Corollas, Camrys, Sentras, & Stanzas — ugh — now those are boring. >>>

>>>I love your sense of humor, you really crack me up! To paraphrase Tom’s statement with Cars (UK) Magazine’s opinion of Volvos we have “the car for people who think they like trucks”. I have a number of friends that have made very good livings owning their own independent Volvo repair shops, so I don’t have any illusions about the myth of Volvo reliability or longevity.

>>> My experience of Volovs of the era was that they were not as reliable as their aficionados like to claim but when they did break, they were really easy to diagnose or fix. The big exception, of course, to this was the dreaded Volvo heater fan motor, which was really a face-palm kind of design. The DLs in particular were very simple cars: ...Compared to Detroit stuff they were good cars but they were never, ever, cheap.

 >>> The 240s were durable but not necessarily reliable… Volvos of that era developed big rust holes in the sheet metal just behind the rear wheels, in front of the mudflaps in the salt belt

>>> There was a very famous engineer at Volvo that walked at great length to specially equip the cars to the needs and requests of the police. All that experience made Volvo a good provider of police cars not only for Sweden, but also for the rest of Europe. They export a lot of police cars to the UK, among other countries.

>>> I borrowed an out-of-town friend’s 1984 240 DL to get around town…. On the plus side, I was able to perform miracles of parallel parking thanks to its … turning radius. I’d still like a 240 as a city car: easy to park, big black bumpers, and no blind spots to hide idiot-drunk-college-studentpedestrians

>>> In 1974 when gas prices spiked, my dad went shopping for a fuel efficient car. He had heard about Volvo cars so he priced one out. I remember his shock when a Volvo 244DL with overdrive (and nothing else, not even a radio) stickered at $8000. That is $37,000 in today’s money, a lot for a poorly equipped car. He reasoned an expensive Volvo would rust almost as fast as cheap Corolla,

… Volvo indeed made good cars but their volume was so low they had to have high prices to build in quality. This in turn severely limited how many cars they could sell. In 1975 there was a good argument that a Volvo was the safest car on the road but by 1990 there were many good, safe cars around… I have driven lots of old Volvos. They are strong, tough cars. They are also ponderous and slow. I don’t think I could ever stand one as a daily driver.

>>> …. The 240 was rejected out of hand because we considered it outdated by that time.

>>> Sure, compared to America stuff of the era, Volvos were relatively reliable. The thing is when the Japanese started making really good stuff circa 1990, people like myself got used to the exceptional reliability of said cars. Volvo had lost its claim to fame .

>>> Neighbor had a late 70s early 80s ¨… The wiring harness was bio-degradable to the point that the sheathing delaminated from the wires and he ended up dumping it after 4 or 5 years. From the outside it looked great, he always took care of his cars but the evil lurked underneath.

>>>…A superb design and very under estimated .I ran an old 240 auto for 11 years and it did everything you could ever expect from a car I would love to own another one now.

>>> They weren’t THAT slow. If you compare a base 240DL with an automatic, and say, a pre-1990 Accord with an automatic, you’ll find that they’re both about as quick as one another, but the Volvo is a lot more relaxed and torquey. They also are more fun to drive, thanks to steering which has actual heft to go along with feel.. The 240 was quite dated when discontinued in 1993, but old Volvos were luxury cars in their own way. Spartan and dated, certainly, and also inefficient and somewhat crudely built, but until the very late ’80s and early ’90s, they outclassed their more precisely assembled, efficient and chic Japanese rivals in road manners, comfort and substance. Their 740/940 successors were lateral moves and not any meaningful improvement to most buyers.

They weren’t any safer, they weren’t much more comfortable, they weren’t any faster (sans turbo) and they handled only a little bit better. …

>>> I don’t agree that the 740/940′s were a lateral move though. They were a lot more modern than the 140/240 in many ways: structurally, safety-wise, electrically, and they were a lot more rust-proof. I mean, they almost NEVER rust (and I live in New England). The did have the good old b230 engine though, so I guess that’s pretty lateral.

>>> I still daily drive an ’82 242 with about 230k miles on it. I’m a little confused about some of these comments about their reliability. 30 years out, this car still continues to be really reliable. … I spend more time and money fixing rust related problems then I do fixing mechanical problems.

I will someday however have to address the rotting wiring harness. Mine’s still in pretty good shape though.

>>> Funny how some people claim that older Volvo’s were not that reliable to them and others claim that they were dead solid. Makes one wonder…

1984 Volvo 240GL – Sensible Luxury
The Volvo GL was a stroke of genius for Volvo. Adding a little luxury and exclusivity to its tough-as-nails 240 series gave you the option of a luxury Volvo without the hassle of the 264GLE’s troublesome PRV V6 engine. It was so well received that it lasted all the way through the Eighties, while the 264GLE was gone by ’83…. Volvo decided that they would combine the engine of the 240 and features of the 264 to create a new model, the GL. …As with the DL, the 240GL had a 2.1L inline four cylinder engine …. In a road test of the GL, …
Car and Driver had much to say: “(The Volvo GL) is a genuinely amusing car to drive. It’s alert, responsive, and stable. The handling, braking and roadholding that go with that luxury are first-class, and although the ride is European, it would not offend a Pontiac driver. (The 2.1L four) is an infinitely lovable engine…that just seems to beg for abuse”

In 1982, a GL station wagon was added, …….. Starting in 1983, the 240GL was the nicest 240 you could get. … The Volvo 240 was arguably the world’s most practical car at the time. These cars were very space efficient, with ample head and leg room for passengers. The trunk was a perfect box shape (like the rest of the car) with 13.9 cubic feet of space. …..The wagons were even more practical, with 41.1 cubic feet of space in the cargo area…. Need more room? No problem, just load up those trunks or traveling shells onto the available roof rack.

Volvos reputation was built on these cars. Not only were they practical, they were assembled and finished with extremely high quality. Instead of electrogalvinizing, used by many manufacturers at the time, Volvo used a hot bath process to galvinize every square inch of the bodyshell. It produced a protective layer of zinc that was three times thicker than possible by using electrogalvinizing. Front fenders were made of Zinchrometal and used plastic liners in the wheel wells to boot. Door latches had built in drains, all exterior trim was made of stainless steel, and the exhaust system was aluminized. These cars were built to last, and Volvo wasn’t shy about advertising the fact. Their brochures in the ’80s spelled out all of these features, and more...

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