I just saw a car almost identical to mine on turbobricks.com. It appears to be a red 72 142 or made to look like one like mine. His car however has been lowered 3-4 inches and looks well..awesome. I have tried to get this look by cutting a pair of 160 springs for the front. The first pair I cut too short and would knock around in the A-arms when the car was unweighted (probably not a good thing). The second time around I only cut about two coils off and did not lower the car much at all. I have the later style high arch fender, like this particular car. Does anyone know how to achieve this lowered look, fenders sitting only about 1 or 1.5" above wheel w. 195 55 r15 tires, without compromising handling and overall safety?

Which car are you talking about exactly? Are you talking about the ones on the track? That car is no where near stock, and is a full on race car, not setup for the street. Also, when talking about tire/fender gap, your tires are more than an inch shorter overall than the original fitment tires and aren't helping you have a small fender/tire gap, although they do lower the car further and do look good. I have the smaller fender openings on my 142, and will possibly have some cut 164 springs pretty soon here as well. You say 2 coils cut off didn't seem to do much? I wonder how that'll work on my car, I'll use that as a starting point I guess, maybe 2.5 coils... And how much did you cut off of the ones that you say you cut too much off of?

You can cup the lower A arms to get lower, and you can do other things as well(shorter springs, maybe try cutting the stock springs instead, see how low you go with those cut, and the softer rate, compared with the 164 cut springs anyway). But, if you want to go lower than you already probably are, your A arms won't be parallel to the ground anymore and you'll be running into other issues such as bumpsteer and other bad suspension geometry...
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Kyle - '68 142? - Oregon Volvo Tuners?

I highly recommend the springs you can get from Parker at V-performance. I've had them on my 71 142E for over a year now, and really like them. Plus they work great for my rallycross habit. :) I also have a 142 built for road racing that is VERY lowerd (as in the 3-4 inches you were talking about) and the front and rear tires are actually up inside the fender openings... And yeah, you would never want to drive that car on the street. Far too low, not to mention a very harsh ride. But it works good as a race car though!