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Who is he & why does it matter?
They build them 15 minutes from my place, the Brisbane City Coucil pledged to buy their busses and the truck and bus plant came to be. Volvo have sucked up two American greats, Mack & White + the former French giant Renault. I'm not sure when Volvo split car and truck companies, probably in the 70's would be my SWAG. The car company stayed a niche company while the truck company went onwards & upwards.
The story I heard about Ford is that they wanted the 5 banger Volvo for the Focus, because that is pretty much all they did. I don't care too much for Volvo after the 140 wagon was developed because they showed how tight arsed they had become buy not using a different window and frame for the rear doors. The 240 took the 140 and cheapened it with a McStrut front end and built a very half arsed SOHC motor for it to keep up with the fashion of the day. The only true step forward was the tappet cover was an improvment, HP and economy went down and the alloy head motor ended up being 15lbs heavier than the old iron donkey! Having said that, I still would like adding a 242 with a 4 valve 2.5l in an upright position made from the best bits of B234, B23 and B30. Alternately, a turbo B21, possibly stroked with a truckload of work done to the exhaust ports of a GT style head might be OK, but turbo donkeys cost much more to build right and sound like a vacuum cleaner on heat. Turbo donkeys I like run 1 to 2 atm all day long, huff diesel and get their best effiency pulling 1 ton per BHP.
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