Alan Dahl wrote:
>Oddly the P1800 wasn't actually built by Volvo but rather by
Jensen in England using >Volvo engines
The Volvo B18 and B20 engines were both British designs. Which
comes as no surprise to those of us who've owned cars with those
engines. They are visually interchangeable with any number of
other agriculturally-derived English designs.
I believe that other Volvo models in addition to the P1800 (PV544
maybe?) were built in England for a time. IIRC, as Volvo grew,
they gradually increased production capacity in Sweden and
brought more of their production in-house.
>Must be pretty stout cars though, I've read of a couple topping
the 3/4 million mile >mark.
My experience with 60s and 70s Volvos was that you could cripple
them, but they almost never let you down. I have to offer the
qualifier "almost" because I did have one breakdown: my 73 142
tore up a timing gear on the road once. It was my fault, as the
gears had been making noise for more than 5000 miles. Since the
engine was non-interference, repair cost me about $80 for the
gears and gaskets and a day of class in graduate school.
If I were going to drive off a cliff, I'd rather be in a Volvo
than almost anything else. ;<)
Jay
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