There is something innately alluring to me, as a Texan, about a pickup truck. I’d like to think it has something to do with an appreciation for utility, but I live in a city apartment. It’s rare that I need a 4’x8′ sheet of plywood or 200 pounds of gravel. While I respect the utility of a truck, it’s not currently a requisite feature for me at this point in my life.
I thought it was because I wanted to tow something. I’ve been quietly eyeing trailers, hoping that one day I’ll have the space and spare change to acquire a vintage Airstream. While I’ve been cross-shopping trucks for such a purpose, I’m also entertained by the idea of buying a completely unlikely tow vehicle like a Panamera V8.
Some would say that the need for a truck is really a mask for male inadequacy, but given the number of Volvo 240s I’ve owned, that doesn’t seem likely either. What I think non-truck people misunderstand about trucks is, simply, that they look cool. Trucks look cool. This is the main reason I like trucks. And the stylistic flourish that I love most in trucks is the two-tone paint job.
You know who does the two-tone paint job better than almost anyone? Ford. I love a two-tone Ford truck, and they’ve been doing this forever.
Check out this 1941 Ford tow truck, which is one of the oldest two-tone trucks I could find. There’s no reason why this truck, which was a promotional vehicle, needed to be two-tone. It doesn’t enhance visibility or provide extra cooling. It does, however, provide extra cool-ing. It just looks cool.
This isn’t to say there’s not a reason why two-tone works on trucks.
As you can see in this lovely tableau of Seventh-Gen F-150s, that’s a lot of flat surface on the side of a truck. On the short-bed black model it’s not so bad thanks to a little brightwork. The dually at least has some surface change with the fender, although it does look quite flat. The extended-cab truck stands out here, right? Obviously, the short-bed, flareside in red with the black graphics also looks quite cool, but there’s something about the tow-tone that I can’t look past.
It even works on big trucks, like this cab-over Ford heavy-duty truck. This blue over cream is especially of the era, and the little flourish of the 45-degree line breaks up all the right angles quite well.
The British arm of Ford also tried to do this with its Thames trailer with… mixed results.
Above, this 1987 Ford F-150 XLT Lariat is probably the most popular and common example of a two-tone truck, with a wide strip of white offset by red rocker panels and a red hood/beltline. You see this on Silverados and Rams as well.
By the time my beloved 10th-generation F-150, you can see it’s been toned down a little. The rocker panels still have the contrasting color, but the upper graphic is now just a little stripe that hints at the old style. There are obviously modern trucks that have this two-tone paint again, and I think it’s kind of the ideal.
Obviously, it works for non-trucks as well. Even the Ford Aerostar got two-tone:
I think I’ve been inside this van. I feel like every mom in the ’80s had this van.
It obviously works on cars as well, like this Ford Taunus, but I particularly love it on trucks. Damn. Keep me away from the auction sites, please.
Top photo: Ford Heritage Vault
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the look of 90s F-150s and Expeditions with the Eddie Bauer trim package. Navy or dark green over khaki was <chef’s kiss>. I thought that must have been peak luxury lol.
Then I bought a 2010 Eddie Bauer Explorer after my wife and I had our first child and was disabused of that notion. It was a great vehicle, and I still see it driving around the neighborhood after trading it in a few years ago, but it wasn’t luxurious.
2 tone good, but might I suggest tricolor?
My 79 Burban is 2 tone cardinal red over white and I think it’s fantastic!
Square body Suburbans look so good with two tone paint! My Dad’s 1990 was white-red-white, with orange/red and gray pinstripes in between the first two.
9th gen F150 extended cab in two-tone paint is still the best looking truck ever made.
I had a two tone white/blue 88 GMT400 with blue interior and blue floor. So nice. Boy i miss that thing
The angular trucks with significant character lines look right in two tone like a Ford bump side or OBS. The rounded 10 the generation F150 looks better monochrome since there is no prominent character and the rub strip on the cab is body color. My red XLT long bed looks better than the blue over silver Lariat around the corner. As a counterpoint, the equally rotund GM Advanced Design trucks do look right in two tone
Yes two tone is the correct tone for most trucks.
Ever since Adrian posted about the GMT400 in his Damn Good Design series, I too have an irrational desire for a later version of them. Regular cab, long bed.
I’m not even a truck guy or would have a ton of use for it.
So, I get it.
A Tahoe or Blazer would have the GMT400 vibes with an enclosed body
Two-tone certainly looks better. The Camry XSE with two-tone is the best looking Camry. They should offer it across the range. For a while I lusted after an Aerostar in that blue/silver two-tone. That’s the only color that interested me. Am I the only one who misses flareside/fenderside pickups?
I can’t disagree. Old trucks always look great in two-tone.
I took my license test in 1986 in a red over beige diesel 3/4 ton Suburban. And I would about KILL to own that truck today, in all it’s non-turbo slug-like glory.
Later my folks had a purple over beigy-gold ’95 Ford Windstar. Which was, of course, immediately dubbed Barney. It was an epic turd-mobile, but it looked great.
Im not crazy about the size of them but the last couple generations of Fords definitely look great with the lower trims being two tone. Always catches my eye when they drive by
Based on the collective fleet of your colleagues, it would be very practical for at least one of you to own a tow truck. Even a tow tone one! Do it!
Someone might have to also invest in a flatbed or even a dumpster to address some parts of the collections.
Torch and DT have trucks. DT is on the other side of the country and Torch can’t turn his off. So maybe getting a slightly more reliable example would be ideal
I think Andy might be talking about a rollback, and oh man, that would be the dream! Just roll up to the port in a hot pink rollback, hook up my latest import, and roll home.
I misread the tow as two. Too many two tones to keep track of!
Mercedes. Do it. You won’t.
Re: dumpster. Hoping no one buys a cyberturd till they can get a used one for 5k. In as bout 3 years then…
Just last week, I had two GMT400s pass me within a mile wearing identical medium and light blue two-tone paint jobs, and couldn’t help but think how great they looked.
Uh-Oh. That may have been a glitch in the matrix. It happens when they change something. Are you OK?
My first car was a first gen Dodge Dakota with a two-tone paint job (black with a wide silver stripe down the side, about like that ’87 F-150, a red pinstripe at the top of the silver and a solid red interior). I’m sure at least some of it is first-car nostalgia, but I still think that’s one of the sharpest looking trucks I’ve ever seen.
I just bought my first Volvo 240 at the ripe old age of 59, and wish I’d done so much sooner (I didn’t own a Sawzall until I was 40, and that way way late too). Since you mentioned it, may I ask how many 240s you’ve had Matt?
I was 59, too, when I bought my ‘88 240 DL for $200. For nine years it was my go anywhere, park anywhere, fill it up with everything ride. Good solid car. Donated it to charity. I believe in Sweden 240s qualify as pickup trucks.
2 tone a Volvo. I see Volvo orange and cream. Or was that ‘dead people’ ?
I see a giant Creamsicle.
$200? Wow! Yes, I know prices go up and down (being historically up atm) and vary by a zillion factors, but I’m deeply envious anyway. 🙂 Mine was $4,500. and for the SoCal market at this point in time/given the car’s condition it seemed like a fair price that both the seller and I could be content with.
Doesn’t change the fact that I’d buy most ANY flavor of running 240 for $200. and consider it the best purchase of my life. 🙂
It was a very lucky find for me that came at a point I really needed a break and I got a chance to experience why people love Volvos and especially the 240.
Funny moment: I usually performed all maintenance myself, but the heater core let go and I didn’t want to get up between the firewall and the dash so I took it to shop that had worked on my Saab for years. A young mechanic got into the car to bring it into the bay, then just sat there for a couple of minutes. Finally he got out and came back inside and got the manager.
“You got to check this out,” he said. “I’ve never seen a Volvo with a manual transmission!”
The manager looked over at me and just rolled his eyes.
😀 I’d never attempt to do a heater core either.
I was out in Hollywood last night to support a pal showing his art at an improptu gallery space, so that counts as my once-a-year obligatory socializing after dark. 😉
Anyway, I was cheating on my pal because I stepped outside when the crowd inside got to be a bit much… sitting on a ledge in front of a nearby building on Cahuenga as dusk settled in, another gallery goer came up to me and said that I had a nice car (I drove there in my new-to-me ’89 Volvo 240 wagon, which is missing bits of trim here and there and has lost about 70% of its clearcoat, so in truth it looks a bit ratty).
He was a Korean guy with passable English and looked to be maybe 15 years my junior, so just starting to approach middle-age himself. He said that he was an artist too, and had been in the US for a few years, and then proceeded to tell me stories about his childhood experiences in 240s, and asked me plenty of questions about mine.
Full disclosure: I probably spent more time chatting with him on Cahuenga Blvd. than I did inside with the wine and my friend’s paintings.
Great story. I guess if you can speak 240, you find someone to talk to anywhere. Think I’d have made the same choice you did that evening, though it’s unlikely anyone could talk me into town these days. A 240 wagon is a grail car, as David Tracy might say. Hope you get many, many years of service from yours. Wouldn’t mind finding one in good order myself, though I wouldn’t look away from a P1800 ES should one happen along.
I know they’re hardly hardcore sportscars, but I’d love a P1800 too. 🙂
They are really great cars, though now sadly they are all either old and well-used or REALLY expensive. And very much into the “old car” issues of parts supply and quality. I was able to buy them back when they weren’t so old, my nicest being a ’91 245 bought when it was only 5. $10K was a lot of money for 27yo me, but it was a heck of a good car!
Though I have to say, as good as 240s are, I think 7/940s are even better. Same bulletproof mechanicals, but everything around them is better. Especially, nice to have an electrical system that was actually designed, rather than the product of 20 years of random evolution. 🙂 But all-together, I have owned 13 RWD Volvos, from a ’76 242 to a ’95 945. Every engine except the V6, including a pair of 16Vs (my favorite!).
I had a 700 too for a short while… and I agree that it (and presumably, the later 900) are much more modern feeling than the 240. As much as I like the ’89 240 wagon I just bought, it seems old by comparison to the even the smallest/cheapest newer cars… which is reasonable I suppose given it came out in 1975 and went largely unchanged through 1993. It’s noisier, less refined, and has a significanly less supple suspension than most any new(er) car, the 700/900 included.
It’s also kind of tinny-feeling: not rattly or flexing, but just light compared to other/newer cars. A 240 door feels like it weighs half as much (or even less!) than the door on my ’04 XC90 or even the door on the ’00 VW Golf TDI that I owned until recently. 240s were among the safest cars you could drive back in the 1970s and 1980s, but they’re much less safe than any modern small car, given the improvements that have been made in the past 50 years.
I might get a 900 series wagon at some point, but by then, it’ll probably be time for another Mazda instead… maybe a 2nd gen CX-5, which I’ve yet to own. 🙂
240s are *ancient* at this point. Though I think they still feel like tanks (actually more so than the 7/9s, those cars suffering from being designed to be MUCH easier to assemble). The 240 was just a revamp of the 140, so it is fundamentally a car from the early 60s. The 700 is a car from the early 80s by comparison, with a revamp into the 940 a decade later. Still ancient, but at least it was DESIGNED to have the standard modern basic amenities (PW, PL, A/C), rather than having them glommed on over the years.
All of them are too old for me to have any interest in daily driving any more. But having also had the experience of an ’04 V70, I will take one over that generation every time. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze with the FWD cars – they cost as much as the Germans to run while being NOWHERE near as rewarding to drive.
But given unlimited garage space, I would LOVE to have a nice old 242 as a toy. Preferably an 84.5 Turbo. 🙂
Yes, the 240s are very close to the earlier 140s and both are simply old at this point. Maybe it’s the novelty of the new-to-me 240, but I actually took the insurance off my XC90 and registered it PNOP, and am now using the 240 as my daily driver. I only drive locally, and rarely even get into fifth gear (though I’m glad that it has a fifth gear 😉 ). Though it’s a DL, it’s got power locks, windows, heated seats, A/C, etc… (the prior owner added a tach) but yes, it’s an old car and feels like it.
I haven’t done any work on it yet since most everything works well enough atm, but I’m gradually working my way through all the many YT videos about 240s and redblocks, and their simplicity seems encouraging to me, a casual DIYer with a bad back. Compared to my NA 240, my turbo XC90 looks like the Space Shuttle underhood: there’s so much plumbing it’s a bit off-putting. 😉
But I’m sure I’ll eventually get an EV as a daily driver. Maybe by the time I’m ready, first-gen Ionic 5s will be reasonably priced (though yes, they have their own issues too of course… nothing’s perfect/bulletproof). 🙂
They are definitely simple and easy to work on mechanically. Not so good at telling you what ails them when they do go wrong though – stock up on goat entrails and tea leaves. That LH blinky box under the hood is the next best thing to useless as a diagnosis tool. Parts supply and especially quality are getting to be an issue. Volvo themselves are supplying Chinesium crap in those expensive blue boxes all too often today. The electrical system could have been designed by the Prince of Darkness himself (because it was never designed as a whole, it literally evolved). But compared to a modern, there isn’t much to it.
Very durable cars, but not really amazingly reliable cars ultimately. But certainly more than good enough, even at ripe old ages. And fun in a very slow car quickly sort of way, especially with a stick. Good steering, but the handling is live axle vintage and the limits are very low. Sadly, only my very first Volvo, a ’76 242 was a stick, the hoary old 4spd + Laycock electric overdrive.
I read about the 4spd+overdrive (and the 3spd auto) and I gather both are usable, but of course jumped on the 5spd when one came up. At some point I’ll drive down to San Diego and that fifth gear will finally come in handy.
It’s my 3rd Volvo (first 240) and at 36 years old, the oldest car car (relative to year of purchase) that I’ve ever bought (I had a ’69 Stingray, but that was in the 80s). So far, so good. 😉
The 4spd+O/D is actually a better, tougher transmission than the 5spd. The 5spd is somewhat known for failing relatively young (for a Volvo anyway). IIRC, it’s recommended to overfill it with oil somewhat. The Laycock overdrive itself very rarely gives trouble , though the electrics that activate it can occasionally (I know, shocking). But ultimately, the newer the 240 the overall the better, and the last of the O/D cars were in 1985, IIRC.
The 3spd slushbox went away in 1983 or 84, thankfully. GLs got it for a couple years while DLs still had the 3spd. The 4spd AW is utterly bulletproof, but annoying in that bafflingly Volvo never fitted a lockup torque converter, even though they used the same transmission with lockup in the 7/9s. And it’s a direct bolt-in for a 240.
’89 is a good year for them. They got the rust-proofing pretty good by then, and it’s new enough to not have biodegradeable engine wiring harness and ECU issues.
Really, rust is the only real killer for a 240, other than abject neglect or misadventure.
Mine has some rust, but only a few small focused perforations at the base of some windows (including oddly, inside one window). They’re all no bigger than 3/4″ max in diameter (most smaller) and strangely, they seem like Alien blood/acid was dripped on the car: eating straight through but not spreading… the metal next to the holes is full thickness and not rusted. Maybe it’s an artifact of imperfect rustproofing or something… I dunno.
It’s been a CA car all it’s life, but did live near the beach for a while, so maybe that has something to do with it. The rest of the car, including the underside, wheel wells, suspension bits, lower body panels, etc… are all remarkably rust free (at least what can be seen without a borescope… I plan to buy one to peek inside the panels before I permanently seal the holes, in case treating the inside of the panels w/that waxy/oily spray through a tube thing is warranted).
The prior owner treated the rust… I had some pix but can’t find them. Of course, there’s no salt on the roads here, and very little rain, so with some preventative maintenance, the wagon will outlive me. 🙂
PS: I still think it’s likely that I’ll eventually have a used Hyundai Ionic 5 as a daily driver at at some point, charms of the Volvo 240 wagon notwithstanding. 😉
That’s typical salt-air rust. Condensation happens overnight, which causes spots of salty water to collect and rust from the top surfaces down in localized areas. Happens here in FL too.
I have a friend wish an Ionic 5, he loves it.
Thanks for the info. I’d honestly never seen it up close/in person myself til now. 🙂