It was the year 1979, and with it came the re-introduction of the GT to the Volvo line up, it came in the form of the lovely 242 GT. This was an interesting move for Volvo, this was around the era that the Volvo car corporation, having reached many milestones on the automotive safety front, seemed to be heading more towards the luxury car market, and all of a sudden the GT is back on the scene. This was the first two door Volvo to come to Australia since the 1800 series, it sported the B23E engine which put out 105kw, while most of the 242 GT's that came to Australian shores had the 'H' camshaft, mine actually came with the more racey 'K', lucky for me, this of course mine puts out approximately 500kws, well not quite, perhaps one day.
I remember the 242 GT coming home, many years ago, to be perfectly honest, this car wasn't for me, it was even bought before I could drive, Dad bought it for my brother, I'm not exactly sure what happened, I don't remember, maybe I don't want to remember, but somehow I weaseled my way into it, something vague about my brother going overseas for a while, I grabbed the car, had some work done on it, and the rest is history. It's been loved and looked after by me since. Well up until say 2000. See around this time I started buying 'newer' cars, and kind of neglected the beast, it started rusting and rotting, it was home to God only knows how many spiders, but if the amount of web on the car was anything to go by, you'd have to guess around 100. Sitting in the driveway, for years, getting worse and worse, it was always on the back of my mind, to fix her up, and one day I did.
Over the next few pages, we'll be watching the 242 come back to life, luckily a good friend, Cas, has put his hand up for the job, this works out well for me, as I don't have the money to spend on this car at a regular panel beaters, especially in the time frame they'd want to get it done in, ie. fast. No, instead, Cas will take the car, to his place, and lovingly restore her, well not quite a restore, it'll have huge modifications from the original. We're starting with the body, fixing the rust, cleaning it up, straightening panels, and a nice paint job. Then come the wheels, hopefully this time they won't get stolen, we'll move onto some light performance mods, then the interior, the probably back to performance, and I have a feeling back to performance. So stay tuned for the all the exciting action and watch her slowly, but surely come back to life. Better than ever!
FIX LIST PAGE
Read the Volvo 242 GT write up in a Wheels car magazine from 1978! Page 1 2 3 4 5 6
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