Otto and I got back very late at night – well, I suppose early morning, really – from that Hemmings Rally that we used as an excuse to drive our plucky Nissan Murano CrossCab and give me a chance to really test the tolerances of my kid when it comes to spending time in marginal cars with me, which we’ve done an awful lot of this year. The CrossCab actually did great, but there’s some other cars I want to show you because, duh, that’s why we’re here, right? And one is that orange Volvo.
The rally wasn’t huge, but there was a nice set of interesting vintage cars; I suppose maybe it was like 40% older/interesting, and then the rest were new, fast things, largely dominated by modern Porsches. Oh, and then the CrossCab, of course.
A couple of the vintage cars were sleepers, looking nice and vintage but having some significant changes under the hood. This is, of course, one of my favorite general categories of cars, thanks to how much they lend themselves to satisfying underestimation. Anyway, this Volvo 242 was one of them.
Looks like a nice 242, right? In a proper shade of Traffic Cone Orange, nice reasonable transportation for college anthropology professors or something. And the pair that were driving this one seemed to fit a charming father and daughter combo who made the wise choice to bring along a bunny, which was named Oto, which, of course, delighted my Otto:
So, what’s under the hood of this Volvo? Here’s a clue:
Huh, 6.0 seems a much bigger number than what you usually find there, right? That’s because it’s not one of those Volvo red blocks in there, it’s one of these:
Yep, a Corvette engine! Sure, an LS swap is probably what you guessed anyway, but it’s still nice to see how well this works and how cleanly it fits in this orange brick’s engine bay. Plus, this car is a daily driver, which just makes it even better.
Remember that BMW 1600 I showed you last time?
Sure you do. It’s charming. It had a lot more than 1600 cee-cees under its hood:
Two more cylinders, and a lot more tech. Also a really clean fit! These are impressive builds!
There were a number of other really fantastic cars that showed up, like this not-quite-an-XR4Ti:
I say it’s not quite a Merkur XR4Ti because it’s the OG version, a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth:
Who doesn’t get excited seeing these and their massive wings?
This Alfa was one of my favorites, too. I had a lot of favorites, I suppose. But this little Giulia Sprint GT was a charmer, and let’s take a moment to appreciate these taillights:
Lovely things.
This immaculate gold 928 was also wonderful, and allowed me to introduce my child to the magic of the Car with Rear Sun Visors.
But enough good cars! Let’s enjoy some shots of the CrossCab!
Look how at home the CrossCab is next to an NSX. Two-car garage dreams, right?
Big, beautiful skies are best enjoyed in a convertible, right? Well, maybe a convertible where the top reliably opens and closes would be better, but you know, can’t have everything.
These are lovely pictures. How’s your tolerance for something a bit more, um, grisly? If low, then just scroll past to the comments, because I’m gonna show you a notable thing we saw that maybe you don’t want to see. Here it is at a distance so you can judge; it involves what seems to be roadkill, so, again, scroll past the next two pics if you’d rather avoid that.
No, I didn’t hit that animal. It’s a boar, and I’m sure it’s just sleeping.
Sleeping very stiffly. I’ve never seen a dead boar by the side of a road before, so this was new for me. It looks like it rolled there but was remarkably intact; these are pretty rugged beasts!
There’s another rugged beast. It’s hard not to notice the proportional similarities of the CrossCab and that unfortunate boar there, too. I bet they handle about as well on the twisty roads.
RIP boar.
Love that green Alfa and the orange Volvo… such a long, clean, 3-box shape. 🙂 I’ve been asked twice if my 240 wagon aka 245 is LS swapped, only to have to disappoint by explaining that it’s just the stock red block 2.3 liter four with a wonky cam, and a new stainless exhaust. The resulting lumpy idle with deep exhaust note makes some think it’s gotta be a V8 under there.
I was thinking it was a diesel swap of some kind. Would have bet TDI or Merc but Volvos can get weird so some random kabota or Isuzu or even a deutz. Hemi swaps are getting more common that would have been at least mildly more interesting.
Boar got Orlove’d.
In my experience, so is the number 242:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54882888187_b2ee747531_c.jpg
Well, at least I’m familiar with that part being true.
If you waited long enough by that boar carcass you would have spotted RFK Jr stopping by for lunch.
Stop exaggerating. He just wants the head.
COTD here. Thanks.
You have to leave it out a while to attract enough parasites first.
Or more brain worms. That was meant as a reply to Dodsworth below but your comment came in as I was typing and the platform this site runs on does some weird things. Including not being able to copy what I typed, delete the comment and then reply to the intended comment.
Why are there two dead, ugly pigs in that third to last photo?
Spot the differences. Which one is wearing lipstick?
Not shrimp, then. :/
And that last picture really emphasizes the awkward proportions of the CrossCab.
I guessed Jason.
Hahaha I was waiting to see him in the engine bay and a tricksy rear engine swap, myself
Jason’ll only be impressed if there’s a cleverly maximized frunk.
Another hood
#hoodception
Where is Xzibit?
I love to think that somewhere out there a Corvette is tooling around with a 4cyl out of a Volvo.
Isn’t that why they call it a swap?
No trade backs!
Jamie Lee Curtis and Jason Torchinsky in Freaky Wrenchday, coming 2026.
I honestly would have rather seen turbo’d 2JZ under the hood of the Volvo. LS is great, but it’s overplayed.
A Merc OM605 or an OM602 would have made a great replacement.. maybe not for the power figures, but if maintained well would probably outlast the car itself.
So, a lot more work for a more expensive, heavier engine that’s harder to package or one that would make it slower than the original engine that’s already known for good longevity? Weird, but you’re in the right place.
It won’t win any races, but it will do well at the pump, and the torque from those motors can be quite addictive, while never winning a race.
I mean, who hasn’t wanted to attempt a stump pull with a Volvo?
Surprisingly, it almost gets double the gas mileage with the LS, depending on how you move your right foot. I get around 25mpg with the LS. Officially 13.5mpg with the stock B20.
my xc90 has pulled a couple small stumps and medium sized bushes before, that almost counts, yes? Just double check that the tow hitch is in good shape then gently remove slack with a modicum of momentum and Bob is then in fact one’s uncle
I was thinking either (1) a turbocharged redblock, (2) a 5-cylinder swap (with or without turbo) or (3) an EV conversion. I would prefer an engine swap from the same company, as the owner of the BMW did.
I figured it was an LS, but was hoping it would be something like a 13B or RB26
Rotary swaps are always more fun than an LS. But unless you have a warehouse full of apex seals, you might want to not wring it out as hard.
true, which is why I wouldn’t do one myself but I appreciate someone who’s willing to go through the pain to entertain the rest of us.
There was a Mazda rotary specialist shop that operated for a couple of decades until fairly recently in my childhood town (kinda surprising, as it was a relatively small college city; it was in that awkward category, too small to be a city but too big to be a town, lol) and I always remembered the specialist mechanics from that shop and in the Mazda rotary community in general as noting that they found RX7s that were driven gently and babied simply didn’t last and required a lot more work to keep running whereas RX7s that were driven hard and revved out on the reg actually tended to last a lot longer and didn’t require anywhere near as much work to keep running.
So, yeah, if one has a Mazda rotary one might actually want to wring it out pretty hard… (dunno, though, about, say, the NSU RO80 or the Citroën GS Birotor.)
I was expecting a 302 under the Volvo’s bonnet; a 6.0 LS was not on my bingo card. That’s an awful lot of propeller for a pretty small stroopwaffel; a standard 242 weighs about 1000 pounds less than a Corvette that might have worn that engine.
I imagine the performance could be described as “lively.”
It’s a very nice fit there. I’m sure it handles like a happy li’l tail-wagging puppy.
302s haven’t been made in 20+ years so not a lot of people are using them for conversions anymore.
That Volvo, great Paul Newman’s ghost!! (Or…great Newman’s Own ghost!!)
I wonder if today’s children will grow up thinking of Paul Newman as a salad dressing magnate and not realize he was an actor/racecar driver.
Ha, yeah, not unlike the way some kids who grew up in the late 80s & early 90s listening to their parents playing albums by Wings at home; they only knew of Paul McCartney as being in that band & learned later about McCartney’s previous music career…
Oh, geez, this is what I get for commenting before I’ve even had my morning coffee, as I just now realized I could’ve said about that Volvo “great Newman’s Own Caesar dressing’s ghost!!”
Thank god you finally got centercaps installed
Their absence really dragged down the rest of the car.
We really don’t need more pictures of that Cross Cabriolet. I’d rather look at the roadkill to be honest. Sadly Cross Cabriolets are NOT rare here in God’s Waiting Room, FL so I see the ugly things all the time. Quite popular with the blue hair and bad knees set.
I just don’t get engine swaps like these. I admire that work that goes into doing them correctly, but they just seem completely pointless to me, and inevitably you just start breaking things if you actually use the power. The cars are more charming as they were intended to be, and the cars the engines came from are designed to house them. If you want a massively faster car, just buy a massively faster car in the first place. I don’t have a problem with “period go fast mods” though – for example, my Spitfire doesn’t have the engine it came with from the factory, it has one with about 50% more power. But it’s all stuff that came in A Spitfire at one point, just not this one, plus the usual hotrod tricks to hop it up (carbs, cam, exhaust, port and polish, etc).
I had that 242 in Baby Blue (with the 2.1L and 4spd+OD) – my very first Volvo way back in 1987. Amusing to think it was only 11 years old at the time, same age as my current Mercedes wagon, but it was pretty used up by then even with only 150K on it. Times have very much changed in terms of how cars age.
Interesting take. Not sure why you don’t think they can’t necessarily use the power or that things will break. People have been putting a lot of power through Volvo 240s for many years.
Personally I’m all about cars like this. Mostly stock looking from an era with notoriously low performance but modernized to modern performance levels. I don’t really find low power smog choked engines to be charming. Conversely I quite enjoy harassing drivers of newer Porsches and BMWs on mountain roads in my heavily modified 1985 Ford LTD. Literally last weekend a guy on a sport bike moved out of the way for me.
You think putting an engine with 4X+ the original power in a car isn’t going to break things without re-engineering the entire drivetrain? And possibly the body shell itself? People put Ford V8s in these things when they only had 50-75% more power than the stock engine and they still broke things. Heck, just putting modern sticky tires on old crocks can cause dilemmas. That diff that was fine when the tires acted as a fuse by spinning can fail quite spectacularly when the tires just hook up. Similarly, wide sticky tires on a Spitfire WILL break front suspension trunnions that were simply never designed for such forces. There are things like that all over vintage cars.
You do you. I don’t see the point in faster pigs. Just buy a racehorse in the first place if you want a race horse. At least with my Spitfire it’s really just undoing the horrors wrought on the poor thing by 70s smog requirements, plus 10% more.
Those must be either some spectacularly poor Porsche/BMW drivers, or you are driving like such an idiot in that thing that they figure better to be behind you and watch the inevitable from a safe distance.
You think people putting an engine with that level of power into an older car (and in the case of this Volvo, doing so very cleanly) aren’t also upgrading the powertrain and chassis? You didn’t notice the 17″ wheels on this Volvo which are likely hiding big brakes? I suggest you spend some more time looking around cars of this type because you are jumping to conclusions that don’t align with the reality I have seen on most older cars that are built up like this.
My ’85 Ford LTD is putting town about 3x as much power as stock but also has the strongest manual trans Ford ever built for that platform, a welded rear axle with 31 spline axles and a carbon fiber limited slip, several stiffening braces, and upgraded suspension all around. With the exception of the transmission, everything on my car could easily handle another 200 HP.
I have a lot of fun owning a race horse that looks like a Tijuana zebra and catching people off guard. There is a reason my LTD has been featured in several magazines over the years, and your stance that if someone wants a fast car they should just buy a new fast car is frankly baffling and boring to me as a gearhead.
Like I said, you do you.
Different strokes for different folks, but the only reason I’m going to such lengths to defend this Volvo is because it seems like your biggest opposition to it and other cars like was that the entire rest of the car would fall apart with a more powerful engine. That is almost guaranteed to be untrue on a well built restomod sleeper of this caliber (or mine).
I love sleepers and yours soumds badass! NOW, where are the pics you us us?!????
This is an old article and several things have changed since then but it’s the closest I have at short notice.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/the-other-lx-ford-ltd/
Cool car and article! They were right that I didn’t remember that model very well, and I’m old enough to remember. I love how nondescript the car is while hiding the brute within. Sounds like you put a lot of thought into your mods, rather than just slapping stuff on. Thanks for sharing it with us!
BTW, I’ve always been a big modded Aussie Falcon fan as well.
*where are the pics you owe us?(smiley face emoji)
The comment above this one is out of order and was made before he sent the link about his car, not after.
lots of incorrect assumptions in that post.
Got some more details on the rest of the drivetrain and suspension?
BTW, is that a stock truck air intake/airbox?
Sure! The key to keeping it reliable has been using OEM parts in their stock form as much as possible. It’s got a stock LQ4 engine (LS1 intake for hood clearance, Holley swap oil pan, big custom Howe radiator), reflashed GM ECU, 4L60E trans, Ford 8.8 rear end, custom 1 piece driveshaft.
Suspension includes Bilstein HD shocks, slightly stiffer Greddy springs on adjustable perches, IPD 28/25 sways. The BNE rear trailing arms are adjustable length upper and lower and have heim joints on the axle side with rubber bushings on the body side. This allows the axle to articulate more smoothly for better traction out of turns and on bumpy roads. Front struts sit on BNE camber plates for extra caster and camber, 2.5” coil over springs. There’s also some lower chassis bracing throughout.
The only failures I’ve had have been the custom parts- driveshaft went out of balance (it’s too long for the skinny diameter). Walbro in-tank fuel pumps have died from heat. The radiator developed a crack. And the pinion seal is flinging gear oil- the 8.8 came from a junkyard and has high miles. I’m starting to get some clicking in the heims, so I’ll be replacing those this summer.
yes, it’s a 5.3 Truck airbox. I used to design engine filters and try to avoid a cone filter in an engine bay. Plus, I just love how it gives an OEM look to the swap.
Using a stock factory airbox with an engine swap actually gets more cool points from me than an open cone filter.
Absolutely!
Care to be specific? I have been into Volvos for 35+ years. I personally knew Ross Converse, who pioneered V8 240s. I have seen with my own eyes what happens when you put big hp into these cars and get stupid with them. Maybe this one is done right, but probably it isn’t, they rarely are done all that well despite shiny paint and a detailed engine bay. I don’t see the point of making as one other wag here put it “a worse Camaro”. It’s still a Volvo 242 underneath that was never designed for more than about 140hp stock.
Wow, ok. Such negativity. A worse Camaro? In what way imaginable? Maybe hair metal doesn’t sound as good from the stock speakers, but everything else is advantage Volvo.
The 240 chassis has better build quality, more rigidity, and far superior geometry than a Camaro. The anti-squat rear suspension geometry alone, which they designed for superior traction on Nordic gravel roads, is a monumental advantage.
I listed much of what I did to the car in a previous post. Aftermarket parts and know-how have come a long way since the Converse days. It’s not such an impossible feat to build a highly capable 400hp 240, and it doesn’t even take that much capital.
If you don’t like it, that’s OK. You do you, Kevin. But implying it’s a hack job is inaccurate.
The Camaro THAT engine could have come out of has a suspension roughly 40 years more advanced that what the Volvo has. It has structural rigidity that Volvo could not even begin to dream of in 1975 when the 240 debuted, and a level of crash safety that is also beyond their comprehension – and this is capable of crashing at much higher speeds than a 240 was ever designed for or capable of. I don’t care for the styling and packaging of a late model Camaro, but there can’t be any argument that it it’s an EXCELLENT modern performance car platform in a way that a 50yo Volvo simply is NOT, in any way, shape, or form.
Reality is that the 240 was a decent and reasonably advanced boring family car in *1975* – but it was FAR from the most advanced car you could buy even then (it wasn’t even the safest car you could buy then), and was never designed with anything but “slow and steady” in mind. Putting this much horsepower in one today is a fool’s errand. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
I’ve owned a bunch of them, and while they certainly have their vintage charms (and I would LOVE to have a minty example of a STOCK 242 as a Sunday toy, a ’76 was my first Volvo back in 1987), they were hilariously obsolete cars by 1993, and that was *32* years ago. If you must hi-po a RWD Volvo, at least start with a 7/940, which is a 15+ years more modern platform – and the game moved on a LOT in those 15 years. Still antediluvian by modern standards, but at least it didn’t begin in the early-60s. Don’t forget that from the A-pillars back, a ’75 240 was a ’66 140. The 240 added a bit of frontal crash safety improvement and a worse front suspension design, going from upper and lower A-arms to McPherson struts – amusingly to make room for a V8 that Volvo intended, but never made, going with a horrible version of the PRV V-6 instead due to the oil crisis of the ’70s.
You’re clearly just one of those argumentative types. Enjoy your life, Kevin.
I only argue when I have a valid point to make, and the opposition is *clearly* wrong. If you think a 240 is more rigid than literally ANY decent modern car, never mind cars in the same relative position in the marketplace, you are sadly mis-informed. Jack up a 242 by one corner and the doors won’t even shut quite right. And that live rear axle is decent as such go – which is to say it’s merely bad rather than completely terrible in terms of ride and handling. 240s weren’t considered top handlers in the ’70s, never mind TODAY – that you would think so is hilarious. They are deathtraps by modern standards in myriad ways, even if less so than most mid-70s cars.
Enjoy your life as well, Thomas.
You’re entitled to your opinions of course but they seem to be more aligned with the general Camry-driving public than a gearhead spending time on The Autopian, which is surprising. By your logic there is very little reason to modify any car because you can’t improve upon factory engineering.
And again, you act as if some of the downsides of older cars can’t be addressed with modern technology. My Fox chassis car was a noodle from the factory but it now has welded in subframe connectors, a strut tower brace, and a K-member brace. I can lift up the whole side of the car from one corner.
Can’t argue against the deathtrap point. I know my car would collapse in a major accident, but we all choose to take risks in life and this is one I have accepted for the sake of fun.
ROFL – yes, we are all entitled to opinions. I am not a fan of ruining the few classic cars that are left by trying to make them something they are not and were never intended to be. Improving them with period modifications, as I have pointed out has been done with my Spitfire, is fine, turning them into something that is a poor parody of a modern car just seems stupid to me. If you want something as fast as a modern Camaro or Corvette, just buy a damned Camaro or Corvette. Enjoy a classic Volvo for what it is.
But you do you, and I will reserve the right to think what you are doing is stupid.
Yeah, not liking a vehicle because of taste is one thing, but I was pretty vigorously defending your car because it seems his main gripe is that cars like this are cobbled together hackjobs with no other supporting components for the extra power. I suspected that was far from the truth and your comments here confirm it.
That LTD is awesome! Undercover Mustang.
Love your Volvo too 🙂
unngh so many childhood memories rushing back! We grew up in a 242 of that era, a green one with much less than a 6.0 but with a standard transmission and all of the family-protecting safety
Also, on a roadtrip, in a rented camper instead of the Volvo, we saw a dead cow on the side of the road in virtually the same position, all bloated and legs akimbo, just waiting to pop all over some poor Oklahoma DOT employee tasked with removing it. My sister and I still laugh about that. We ain’t right in the head.
I correctly guessed LS. I get that they are cheap and work great, but it’s getting boring.
I should have guessed LS, because it’s such the boring default option today. But being a long-time old-skool Volvo guy, I guessed Ford V8.
The whole “LS SWAP ALL THE THINGS LOL EPIC WIN!!!!” movement is so exhausting. Just either keep the engine it came with and do something cool with it or come up with an outside-the-box swap like an Audi 5-cylinder or something, because all you’re doing otherwise is making a worse Camaro.
Exactly. The Swedes swap some some really cool stuff into these cars.
At least the BMW is still all BMW, even if I think that one is stupid too.
Volvo with Mopar slant six and a stick. Is that good? Not an LS or Windsor.
Keep it Swedish AND make it unnecessarily complicated without gaining much for your efforts – swap out the Volvo B21F for one of Saab’s various B-series mills. Bonus points for going with pre-GM Saab.
I’d be pretty happy to have a 5 cylinder whiteblock + low pressure turbo in one of these.
Pre-GM B or H series is going to make for a very hard time making it RWD (unless you get the motor from a Triumph Dolomite). So go for the gusto – front-wheel-drive Volvo 242!
You really want a 16V H-series turbo to make this worth the bother. The 8V B-series makes less power than a (euro) FI 242 had stock.
Pontiac OHC six would be much more interesting. Definitely with a stick.
Sure! I had a friend in HS who had a mint Firebird in green with the six. He pur a small block in it and painted it blue. Even 17 YO me realized that was a mistake.
If you watch video of the latest Stockholm open there is a Chevy II with a BMW engine in it.
No doubt – those Swedish winter nights are long and the aquavit flows freely.
That boar stiff as a… log? 2×4? Sheet of plywood? Something wood, but it’s not coming to me. Little help?
Piece of tree?
I tried to come up with the answer, but I got bored.
Things No One expects;
The Spanish Inquisition bursting in
Reading a Torch post and getting boared.
I saw the headline and my heart leapt. Maybe it’s something really cool like a 2-stroke lawn mower engine, or a BMW V-10, or a GT-R engine. Nope, LS swap.
Obviously, that animal was very boar-ed.
(sorry)
Cool cars, though. Especially the Cosworth. I’d buy one even if it was actually a Merkur.
IIRC correctly, the Merkur XR4ti spoiler was smaller, didn’t require that awesome support?
And that front 3/4 shot of the CrossCab is when it finally hit me of what it reminds me of, at least if you’re GenX – a Stomper! Torch, go right over those logs on the mountain pass!
Yes, the Xr4Ti rear spoiler was much smaller than to Cosworth spoiler. It was closer in design to the Mustang SVO spoiler, still two-level, but not nearly as huge. Looks like they went with an even smaller one for the last few years of production.
Yes, that’s must be what it reminded me of because I was getting positive offroad vibes from it in that spec. Really dig the paint combo as well. There, I’ve said it.
Someday someone will search the internet using the words “Nissan Cross-Cabriolet” and “Boar carcass” and be shocked out of their minds.
Just imagine the wonky AI-generated answers it’ll generate.