Rare 1980 Volvo Diesel Wagon - Excellent Condition! - $7000

[markgiunta]

I didn’t know that about the dashboard. Very interesting!

[RedArrow]

There's one for sale here

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...5459969038137/

From what year did these diesels start getting the DIESEL badge on the front? The green 242 looks confusing -- in the picture below.

My other question is, do you know of any 2-door car being factory equipped with the d24???

I know there is the 780 d24t (or d24tic?) but Im thinking of a 200 car such as this one:
242 or 262....idk....
Very confusing for many reasons: it shows euro amber corners but has quad headlights. Fender badge definitely looks like a 2.1 emblem but there's a Diesel badge on the grille. Also it shouldnt be on Hydras. It's confusing. It isnt a LambdaSond nor a Turbo badge on there.

These bricks can still surprise and entertain us after nearly 40 yrs.
The round headlight info was found on Wikipedia.

[v8volvo]

Originally Posted by RedArrow

There's one for sale here

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...5459969038137/

That one looks like the other 1980 models I have seen, and like the '80 wagon I had. Contemporary road tests in US publications from when the diesel Volvos first came out in '80 also show cars that look like this one, with quad rectangular headlamps and clear corners, unlike the round lamps and clear corners shown on the car here.

I think the Canadian market theory could be the right explanation, if we have two members that have round-headlight 1980 cars, one in Canada and the other near the border in northeastern US. There were quite a few other examples of Canadian trim packages being significantly different from the US Volvo models, and sometimes even getting engine options we never had here (B23E, B21A for example).

If that is true, it would mean that the Canadian market 1980 diesels were sold in 240 trim while in the US they were in 260 series trim. Similar things happened with considerably different US and Canadian versions of the "240 GL" gas model right around this same year so I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case. It's also possible it started life with US spec quad squares and someone swapped on the round front end, but now that I look closer I see 240 spec mirrors and some other differences also, so it would have had to be a very determined and thorough effort to convert a 260 to 240, which I doubt anyone would have cared to do. I would bet it was built this way from the factory and was imported and federalized at some point.

markgiunta, out of curiosity if you look at the build plate on the passenger side shock tower under the hood, does it show a 240 or 260 body code? Or does it have 245 or 265 in the VIN? Say anything about Canadian safety/pollution standards, any French labeling, etc? Would be interesting to see a picture of the tag.

In any case it only makes your car more unusual and interesting if it has a Canada-special trim configuration. Hope the trivia discussion doesn't bother you, you're helping us all learn something new here.

[v8volvo]

Originally Posted by RedArrow

My other question is, do you know of any 2-door car being factory equipped with the d24???

I know there is the 780 d24t (or d24tic?) but Im thinking of a 200 car such as this one:
242 or 262....idk....
Very confusing for many reasons: it shows euro amber corners but has quad headlights. Fender badge definitely looks like a 2.1 emblem but there's a Diesel badge on the grille. Also it shouldnt be on Hydras. It's confusing. It isnt a LambdaSond nor a Turbo badge on there.

As you say, there were D24TIC 780 coupes in the rest of the world according to VADIS. But I don't think there was ever a D24 equipped 242 or 262 sold by the factory so I think that one must be a homemade swap, or someone added a diesel badge to their gas coupe just for fun and irony.

[markgiunta]

This is all very fascinating guys.

I will tell you, based on the receipts, that it has spent it's entire life in the Northern Virginia area until I brought it to Pennsylvania. I highly doubt anything was changed on this except for the headrests and armrests.

I'm attaching pictures of all the build tags I can find. There is no indication of French language anywhere. Just some Swedish and English.

As a fun side note, the original owner seemed to have traded in a 1972 Volvo 145 when purchasing this one.

update... problem uploading pictures... will continue to work on that.

[markgiunta]

I had to resize them

pictures attached

[markgiunta]

I guess I might as well muddy the waters with some questions I've always wondered. Now, some of this comes from Wikipedia, so it may be false, but..

on the original sale receipt is calls the model "265DA". I always thought is was just a mistake and really was a "DL". Is there a "DA trim level?

There is a reference (in Wikipedia) that says only 600 diesels were made before its introduction in 1980, but it continues to say that none were brought to the US in 1980 because of EPA Standards. Thoughts?

[v8volvo]

Interesting, well that certainly is a 265 VIN and 1980 model year and like you say nothing referring to Canada market spec, so it looks like your car just has an unusual trim package. Maybe they built a few of them this way for whatever reason. It doesn't look like yours has a particular low serial number, which rules out the possibility of it being a very early build from before they nailed down the final trim spec. In fact it's a pretty high serial number if I am interpreting it right. Maybe this was from the very tail end of '80 MY production and represented what Volvo intended to have as a 1981 200 series diesel, which was ultimately never released? 1981 was a gap year for the diesel option, it switched from '80 260 series to '82-84 240 series with nothing in between. Wonder if yours is what an '81 would have theoretically looked like, had they been sold. Volvo did sometimes "roll forward" planned future trim and equipment revisions in the form of running changes partway through a preceding model year, with the "1984.5" mid-year rework of the late '84MY 240 and 760 models to 1985MY style appearance being a good example. But now I'm just speculating. In any event it looks like US car indeed.

Originally Posted by markgiunta

I guess I might as well muddy the waters with some questions I've always wondered. Now, some of this comes from Wikipedia, so it may be false, but..

on the original sale receipt is calls the model "265DA". I always thought is was just a mistake and really was a "DL". Is there a "DA trim level?

There is a reference (in Wikipedia) that says only 600 diesels were made before its introduction in 1980, but it continues to say that none were brought to the US in 1980 because of EPA Standards. Thoughts?

"DA" maybe is Diesel Automatic? Maybe someone with a manual shift '80 model could compare.

1979 Volvo Diesel models existed elsewhere in the world, but were not offered here for '79 model year, only starting in 1980MY. That might be the reference you are mentioning to small production numbers. IIRC the '79 run was very limited.

The lack of 1980 year sales in the US may be due to the absence of a 1981MY diesel model, which would have been mostly sold in calendar year 1980. They had a hard time with emissions compliance early on, and I believe the solution, after they took the '81 model year off to get it figured out, was the slightly smaller 30mm prechambers that were introduced for the 1982+ D24 and D24T heads in the United States/Canada market ONLY. Rest of world continued to use the 32mm prechambers that were used here only in the '80 early design models, like yours. Anecdotally the larger 1980 32mm prechambers are capable of generating a few extra HP, especially if combined with forced induction, but at the expense of a slight detrimental effect on extreme cold weather starting ability.