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OK, here is the long story. 4 years ago I sold my beloved V8 Volvo wagon. It started life as a gray 1989 745 GLE 16v w/M46. Junked the broken B234 and installed a fuel-injected 5.0 HO from a '90 Mustang, using a fresh Motorcraft longblock from Ford and the Mustang's T5 trans. Had a custom driveshaft built by Drivelines Northwest, and used wiring and mounting adapter bits from the Converse kit. I then spent several years perfecting it and getting it sorted. Everything about the conversion was right, down to the last detail. Clean as hell. It had a full Borla dual exhaust and IPD sways but otherwise a stock sleeper.
The guy I sold it to back on the east coast drove it for 4 years and about 40k miles with zero, I mean zero, problems. He and I stayed in touch since occasionally he would want to know more about things I had done in the conversion as he serviced the car. Got a call from the guy a week ago with the bad news. The car was T-boned as he was making a left turn; fenders untouched but both passenger doors got mashed and the B-pillar got bent in. Still ran and drove fine but the insurance company totaled it out. It's a $7k estimate to do the bodywork so this car is done in its current form.
So now what we have here is a very nice V8 Volvo in great functional condition except it's totaled and maybe about to be sent to the boneyard. The current owner is considering trying to find another good body and swapping the whole conversion over, but he's not sure if he has the space or time. I would hate to see this get junked after all that's gone into it.
So, to help him make his decision I agreed to put the word out about this and ask: would anyone here be interested in picking up the pieces from this and building Volv8 version 2.0? You would get a pretty nice, rust-free 1989 745 GLE with a 40k-mile Ford 5.0 engine and manual trans, all properly sorted and working like it should, just badly bent. You'd need another good body to put everything into, but it would be easy, no parts chasing or fabricating or wondering how it fits together. I don't know what he'd be looking at on price but maybe in the one or two grand range... what he could get for it will of course be a factor in whether he decides to let it go or not.
I have no financial stake in whatever happens, only an emotional one. FWIW I still miss this car daily and would take on this project myself if I could. It's located near Baltimore. If you think you might be seriously interested in this, post here and we'll see where this goes.
Pics here: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=172653
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George, Seattle WA
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