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I will start by saying that I found this forum only recently, and was immediately impressed with the level of knowledge so many people over here have on vintage Volvos. It's truly stunning. And as this is my first post here, I'd also like to say Hello  to everyone. I'm not a Volvo owner yet, but I fell in love with the looks of the Amazon couple of years ago. As I am very impulsive, I decided to wait and see if my passion was to be short-lived, went to the army, came back and still found myself ensnared by these trusty (and in some cases quite rusty) swedes of the Beatles (I'm a bit of a fan) era. As English isn't my first (or even second) language, I am prone to making errors in both terminology and grammar, so please forgive me this. I would be glad to become a baby boy of this growing virtual family of Amazon enthusiasts if I'm welcomed to be one.
My question is simple:
What is the fuel consumption of different Amazon models in used state (roughly)? Mostly I'm interested in the differences between models.
Thank you.
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Hello from South Africa. I have a 1970 122S with twin SU's and have got better than 10 km/l (28 mpg) on numerous occasions. That was travelling at between 110 and 130 kph, unladen and one-up. If driven carefully, without overextending your right foot, you can expect this fuel consumption quite consistantly.
Hope you find your Volvo - they are phenominal cars. I have been driving mine for ±21 years now without any major problems. I do however have many stories to tell.
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Thank you all for your contributions and words of encouragement.
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As a baseline, the tech specs from the 1996 book " Essential Volvo 120 series and P1800" (author A.D.Clausager)helps a bit. I believe that any standard (no engine improvements) vehicle will be have now a consumption higer than the original (and "upgraded" engines will be use more gas than standard):
121 B16A (1956-61) 28 mpg
122S B16B (1958-61) 26 mpg
121/131/221 B18A (1961-68) 24-30 mpg
122/132/222 B18D (1961-68) 23-32 mpg
123GT B18B (1966-68) 22-23 mpg
121/131/221 B20A (1968-70) 24-30 mpg
122S / 122GT B20B (1968-70) 23-32 mpg
P1800/1800S B18B (1961-68) 23-37 mpg
1800S B20B (1968-69) 23-37 mpg
1800E B20E (1969-72) 22-26 mpg (non US markets)
1800E B20F (1971-72) 21-26 mph (only US market)
1800ES B20E/B20F (1971-73) 21-26 mpg
Clausager´s source was Volvo literature and the annual cataloge issue of Automovil Revue (Bern, Switzerland).
Happy volving.
--
Joaquin / Rojo 121 / Lima, Peru
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zpd;
Welcome to the Brickboard forum!
Most of us around here can understand your "ensnarement".
In my experience (122 with a B18+.030, dual SU, standard gearing and no OD), I can get approaching 30 MPG at a steady 72mph indicated (that's the "sweetspot") on long trips, but around town, with stop and go traffic, its significantly less (18-22) and very much influenced by my right foot! ...you'll have to do the calculations to bring it into the more common Liters per 100km.
My compliments to your English which is just fine...maybe better than the English one hears from young people who think uneducated is "cool"...and if we notice inconsistencies in the "dialect" we may be used to, it only adds to the unique character of an international forum...and I'd say that's fine too!
Cheers
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I think that the question is less difference in models and more in the state of tune. Twin-carbs use more fuel than singles because they normally get driven with more oomph. And from reading the portfolios it seems that consumption has been increasing with time. The PV 444 got 40 mpg on one test.
I can't really answer for myself because my carbs need balancing, there's something wrong with the choke, and so I get 20 mpg (British!!) on stop and start journeys.
Annual report: " Can do better"
Tom
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Welcome! I've been driving them for 35 years now and find them sturdy,
easy to work on and capable of pretty good performance too, not to mention
snappy appearance. Got 2 1966 220s now, one working.
You may find my response to Matt's comment of interest.
Where are you and what is your favorite language?
(I'm interested in languages although I only do well in English and Spanish.)
Sometimes I'm AKA «el Tío»
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!
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On highway only driving, I will get between 27-29 miles per gallon. Stop and go city driving brings it down to around 20 mpg.
By attempting to convert to the metric system, I think these figures would become 45-48 kilometers per gallon highway, 32 kpg city driving. Whoops, gallons aren't really part of metric system, are they...you will have to handle the conversion to litres yourself.
Sorry if math is screwy/ incomplete, it's early and no coffee yet.
Running with B18, no overdrive, mechanical advance only distributor, no other performance enhancements I can think of on my wagon. Also, I'm currently using a Weber downdraft carb.
Curious, what's the price of fuel is in Finland?
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On highway only driving, I will get between 27-29 miles per gallon. Stop and go city driving brings it down to around 20 mpg.
Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
By attempting to convert to the metric system, I think these figures would become 45-48 kilometers per gallon highway, 32 kpg city driving. Whoops, gallons aren't really part of metric system, are they...you will have to handle the conversion to litres yourself.
Sorry if math is screwy/ incomplete, it's early and no coffee yet.
I'm currently using a Weber downdraft carb, not sure how different fuel consumption would be with the original SU's. No overdrive, no other performance enhancements I can think of on my wagon.
I personally use www.onlineconversion.com for my online conversion needs. May not be the easiest to use, may not be the best in many ways, but it has never failed me. It has its own automotive section aswell.
Curious, what's the price of fuel is in Finland?
There is a Finnish site www.polttoaine.net (direct translation would be www.fuel.net) that monitors the price of fuel at different gas stations in Finland. Cheapest price of 95 Octane fuel seems to be 1.094 euros (1.40961 USD) per litre. I would tell you the price of a gallon, but there seems to be three types of gallons (UK, US dry and US liquid) and I'm not exactly sure which one we are talking about here.
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3.784 liters per US gallon.
(Dry gallons show up in books but not used in practice - goes from dry quarts
to pecks and bushels. Imperial gallons are only used in the fading Brit
Empire.)
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!
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3.784 liters per US gallon.
(Dry gallons show up in books but not used in practice - goes from dry quarts
to pecks and bushels. Imperial gallons are only used in the fading Brit
Empire.)
Thank you. Again, the logical choice would have been the correct one.
If I'm not mistaken, this would make the price of fuel in Finland approximately 0,372 USD per gallon for the 95 Octane kind. And today, that's a pretty good price for a gallon here in Finland.
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Um, nope, more like $5.33 US per gallon.
--
Mike!
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Yeah, that's a bit closer.
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Welcome! I've been driving them for 35 years now and find them sturdy,
easy to work on and capable of pretty good performance too, not to mention
snappy appearance. Got 2 1966 220s now, one working.
You may find my response to Matt's comment of interest.
My unspoken guess of 8.5l/100km on larger roads and 11l/100km in town driving wasn't too far off, it seems.
Where are you and what is your favorite language?
(I'm interested in languages although I only do well in English and Spanish.)
Sometimes I'm AKA «el Tío»
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!
I'm Finnish, which means my home country is Finland, the jewel of Northern Europe. I haven't travelled much, but I'm a reader and if you ask me, Finland is a paradise on Earth *grin*. My mother tongue is Finnish, my second best is Swedish (the second official language of Finland) and I have studied English from the age of 10. And if I'm really desperate, something resembling French may come out of my mouth.
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Once in a while I get that desperate also but I try to avoid it.
What little I know about the Finns and the Finnish language I find
most intriguing. Is Estonian the only closely related language to
Finnish?
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!
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Finnish language differs from many, many other languages spoken Europe in that it's Uralic, whereas most others are Indo-European. When it comes to language relations I (as a layman) would call Hungarian and Finnish sort of cousins whereas Estonian and Finnish are brothers and neighbours. That is to say, a Finn can guess the meanings of some basic forms of some very basic Hungarian words, but understand much of Estonian. Estonian and Finnish are very close relatives, as they are both Finnic languages. Finnic languages also include many spoken in certain nearby areas of Russia, although some of these languages are becoming extinct and most are weak in numbers. Therefore, the most common encounters between Finnic (and Uralic for that matter) languages happen between Finnish and Estonian.
To a person speaking Finnish as a mother tongue, Estonian often sounds funny, because many Estonian words are almost the same or not-very-commoly-used synonymes of the equivalent Finnish words. Estonian sort of sounds like someone speaking a strange and funny dialect of Finnish, although there certainly are many words whose meaning a Finn cannot guess. Many Finnish TV-comedians have played a character that speaks a sort of mock-overdone-Estonian, that's how funny it is for us. Usually this humour is based on the fact that the words are almost right, but not quite.
A real life example that might cause misuderstandings between an Estonian and a Finn is the Finnish word "piimä" which means soured milk. You see, in Estonian, "piim" means milk. Almost right, but not at all, as you can see.
An accurate and free online source of information (good enough for a layman) would be Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, that has it's own section in English dedicated to the Finnish language. Enjoy.
Be sure to check out the interesting links that can be found at the bottom at that page, for example this one that shows the 2,253 (two-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-three) forms the Finnish language has for the word "kauppa" (shop).
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Howdy and welcome! Good to hear new found Volvo enthusiasm still lasts.. Of course, we all knew that already.
As for mileage... they are all about the same. It's really going to depend more on an individual car's state of tune, performance modifications, air pressure in the tires, and driving style.
The wagons are probably a bit worse than sedans just for thier higher rear end gear ratio. If you can find one with an overdrive, that helps significantly... both wagons and sedans.
A stock 122 driven normally would fall in the 25mpg plus or minus range. The same car with an overdrive would probably get well over 30 on the highway.
A modified car with an overbored engine, weber carbs... and the like. Driven by a madman... I've gotten as low as about 8mpg. maybe a bit less. THough that is a 140, it all about the same.
Hope you find a good one and stick around to tell us about it!
--
-Matt '70 145s, '65 1800s, '66 122s wagon, others inc. '53 XK120 FHC
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I think with OD the 220 can get better mileage than the 132 because of the
better aerodynamics. ("Aerodynamics is for people who don't know how to build
engines!"-- Enzo Ferrari) I made a trip in my big bore wagon one late night in
Panama where I got about 33.3 mpg at an average speed of about 65 mph. It was
300 miles and when I filled up I was down 9 gallons. First (and maybe only)
time I ever made that trip on one tank. I had been orchid hunting in the
mountains in dry season and was going to stay with friends but the car and I
both had about half an inch of red dust on us. My friend's wife insisted on
cleaning the shower but just as she got it clean the water went off and I was
MUCH too dirty to sleep in someone else's bed so I went on home. Made it in
about 4:40. Speed limit there was 100k in some parts and 80 in others but
I didn't see any flashing lights, oxcarts or drunks passed out on the pavement.
(It happens!) Got a shower that gradually cleared from rust-colored to clear
over about 20 minutes when I got home. The car wasn't as dusty when I got home,
except inside.
I believe a 121 with 4.1 and judicious driving can probably get over 30 on
a regular basis on the road.
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!
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