I’ve always had a soft spot for these ugly old Volvo bricks and also for drag wagons. This one is a two-time winner in my books.
It could be on a deserted stretch of highway or in the dangerous wall-to-wall rush hour traffic on the freeway in the city. If a Volvo sedan or wagon is there, I’ve gotta look. They’re timelessly unattractive, not aerodynamic at all, but they’re always mint. I’m under the understanding that they must be a fairly well-made car, as I can’t say that I ever see a rusty one. Sure, the paint is often de-glossed, and the blacks have turned grey, but they’re always intact. Oddly enough, I can’t say I’ve ever looked in the window of one in a parking lot, and as I type this, I actually couldn’t be bothered to find an interior picture on Google (or DuckDuckGo for those of us who want to take the search power back). I’m sure they’re fairly luxurious because something had to draw people in to purchase a rolling brick. The front-engine rear-drive platform is classically perfect for a drag car, so it was inevitable that one was bound to pop up someday. This one pops up alright, so hard that it has wheelie bars.
As I type this, I can count seven assorted Chevy small blocks in my collection that don’t have a vehicle wrapped around them. Four are ready to run, two are complete and disassembled, and one needs an impossible amount of machine work (four-bolt main, too, sadly). Why the Chevy small block? Parts are common, affordable, interchangeable, and they make efficient power. Honestly, tons of drag cars have been very successful running them over the years. This Volvo doesn’t run one, however, as my favourite power plant is quickly approaching obsolescence thanks to its successor, the Chevy LS. I’ve seen Mustangs with LS engines, Dodge pickups, that go-kart from a couple of weeks ago, everything. There’s more of them in most wrecking yards than the old small block, and they make upwards of three-hundred horsepower in stock trim, some a little more, some a little less. Aluminum heads and roller lifters are standard equipment, and they’re built to run on modern gas and oil. It just doesn’t pay to put money into a disco-era smogger to get it to that level. Also, the LS engines welcome boost. Sure, there’s a limit, but six hundred horsepower on stock internals isn’t out of the question. I have no idea which LS engine Mikael Borggren has in his Volvo or how much power it makes, but I do know it has a big turbo up front and a parachute out back. How fast? Under seven seconds in the quarter-mile at over two-hundred miles-per-hour. It still has the roof rack even! It probably has posh leather seats too. I should really look into the creature comforts of these things someday.
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk
