Volvo 200 Series

Volvo 200 Series at a glance

The 200 Series is part of our Volvo catalogue. How Volvo grew from its 1927 start in Gothenburg to the brand it is today is told in our history of Volvo.

Volvo 200 Series production timeline

Development and production history

Volvo did not design the 200 Series from scratch. It took the body structure of the 140 and added a longer front end with large impact-absorbing zones, using lessons from the VESC experimental safety car. Rack-and-pinion steering and new front suspension arrived with it. The four-cylinder cars were named 240 and the V6 cars 260; the third digit gave the number of doors, so a 244 is a four-door saloon and a 245 an estate.

The six-cylinder 260 was the more expensive branch and ended earlier, replaced by the 760 of the 700 Series. The 240, by contrast, outlived the 700 Series' launch by more than a decade. Volvo kept improving it in small steps, and in 1992 alone Wikipedia counts about 160 detail changes. The final car left the line on 14 May 1993, and the 940 took over.

The changes over those nineteen years came in small steps. In 1978 the saloons received a new rear, and in 1979 the whole car was facelifted front and rear. A new dashboard followed in 1981, and in 1983 Volvo dropped the DL and GLE names from the 240 range. The turbocharged B21FT engine grew from 94 kW (126 hp SAE) in 1981 to 98 kW (131 hp SAE) in 1984, while the fuel-injected B230F became the standard engine of the late cars. The last major update was the 1992 model year, and for 1993 the air conditioning switched to the R-134a refrigerant.

Production was spread far beyond Sweden. Besides Torslanda and Kalmar, Volvo built the 200 Series in Ghent in Belgium and Halifax in Canada, and assembled it in Clayton (Australia), North Jakarta (Indonesia), Shah Alam (Malaysia), Jurong (Singapore) and Samut Prakan (Thailand).

Design and engineering

The shape is boxy, upright and generous with glass. Its main purpose was crash protection: the long bonnet houses crumple zones derived from the VESC prototype. Safety equipment kept growing during production. US cars received a driver airbag in 1990, ABS was optional there in 1991 and 1992 and standard in 1993.

About one third of all 240s sold were estates. The 245 had 1.2 m³ of load space and an optional rear-facing jump seat for two children, which made it a common family car in Europe and North America.

Engine and drivetrain

Gearboxes were a four-speed manual, a four-speed with overdrive, a five-speed manual, and three- and four-speed automatics. Every car drove its rear wheels.

Volvo 200 Series specifications

Volvo 200 Series variants and derivatives

Racing: the 240 Turbo

The 240 Turbo was Volvo's touring car of the 1980s. For Group A homologation Volvo built 500 "Evolution" cars in 1983, and the racing version went on to win the 1985 European Touring Car Championship with Eggenberger Motorsport. In Australia, Robbie Francevic won the 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship in a Volvo. Volvo withdrew from the sport at the end of 1986, but privately run 240 Turbos still won the 24 Hours of Zolder in 1987 and 1990.

In service: reliability and legacy

Few cars stayed in production as long with so few visible changes. The 700 Series was meant to move Volvo upmarket in 1982, yet the 240 was built alongside it for eleven more years and outlived the six-cylinder 260, which the 760 replaced. Its crumple zones, later airbag and ABS, and the estate that took a third of all sales made it the car on which Volvo's reputation for safe, practical family transport was built. Later Volvo estates follow the same idea on a modern platform, from the Volvo V90 on the SPA platform to the raised XC70.

Preservation and collecting today

The 240 is one of the most affordable entry points into classic motoring. Late cars with the B230F are the easiest to live with, while the 240 Turbo, the early 1970s cars and above all the 262C coupé are the collectable versions. As with any car of this age, rust and a gap-free service history matter more than mileage. To set an old 240 against later Volvos, use our car comparison tool; modern estates of similar size can be found with the car finder. Browse more period cars in our classic car section.

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