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The Very Last Volvo 240 Was Also the Shortest
If you’re looking for the last Volvo 240 made, you won’t find it in the classifieds, at a big-name auction, or hiding in a barn. That’s because the final 240 wasn’t what you’d call “regular-production.” It was a one-off wagon with a short wheelbase built to thank the workers who assembled the model for nearly 20 years.
Volvo released the 200-Series in 1974 to replace the 140-Series and the 160-Series, and the model was made available in numerous configurations. Early on, the name gave you a pretty good idea of what you were looking at: The 242 was a two-door model with a four-cylinder engine, for example, the 245 was a four-cylinder-powered wagon, and the Bertone-styled 262C was a coupe with a six-cylinder. Volvo pared down the range and rejigged its naming system during the 1980s, and the 240, as it had become known, was exclusively offered as a wagon during the last few years of its life. Production ended on May 5, 1993.
Interestingly, the 240 was so important that Volvo ultimately set up a separate division called 240-Bolaget to handle product- and production-related changes. Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, the brand’s chairman in 1993, handed the keys to the final customer-bound car to its new owner, a woman from Sweden, during a small ceremony that was held next to the assembly line. The factory wasn’t done building the 240 yet, however.
The very last 240 built rolled off the assembly line after the final customer car, and it looked like no other wagon before it. Finished in white, it featured an unusually short wheelbase, two doors, and two seats. It was made “just for fun,” according to Volvo, as a heartfelt “thank you” to the men and women who built the 200-Series. What’s with the proportions, though? It’s an inside joke. “Korta ledtider,” which appears in black on both doors, means “short lead time” in Swedish and was added as a reference to, well, the short lead times that assembly-line workers had to take into account. As far as send-offs go, this is a great one.
Volvo still owns the wagon, it’s occasionally displayed at events, which explains why the odds of adding the very last 240 to your collection are pretty low. The good news is that the 240 remains relatively easy to find and fairly affordable. Volvo built 2,862,573 units, including 177,402 six-cylinder-powered 260s.
Volvo 100 & 200 series.
First figure is the series number 1 or 2, second figure is the number of cylinders and the third figure is the number of doors. So 245 is estate 244 saloon.
There was a 1980 264 GLE in gold and a 1982 264 GLE in blue in our family. The GLE came with stylish features such as padded headrests (noticeably different than the distinctive, open-style headrests on the 240s), an executive stereo that could record dictation via a microphone, leather seating, alloy wheels, and, of course, the infamous 2.8 PRV-designed V6. I didn’t realize the V6 was so rare–only about 1 in 20 were so equipped.
The writer of this article should be ashamed. Trying to sound knowledgeable about something that happened 30 years ago and is well documented. Volvo built 240 sedans right up to the end of production in May of 1993. You probably even insure a few hundred of them.
Classic cars are Volvo’s, have had quite a few, currently driving an 850 sedan made in 1995, still going good, feels solid compared to the newer model Ford sedans and similar, the 850 doesn’t have all the mod cons of the new cars of today but I would rather drive the older cars as they are easier to work on and don’t have too many unnecessary electric components that can go bad and cost a lot of money.