Khe Sanh,
I am by my own admission somewhat of a Luddite, so please do excuse for for this, but in a way, I like to think we ALL are here, else we would be driving and enthusing about some god awful modern rep mobiles or similar.
I am passionate about most things Volvo, the company ethos and its products, at least up until the 740/760 after which things went front wheel drive, and some great cars came along, but for me, I'm entrenched in what I myself term proper Volvo's...ones whose rear wheels were driven and the front ones sole duty was steering
The B18/20 engine is often cited as one of the most reliable and strong workhorses ever made, in fact I believe it does actually claim this title, as strongest normally aspirated pushrod petrol engine.
When it comes to anything Amazon, I am passionate beyond belief and Peter Ragg is another man who shares this same level of Amazon passion, however I do still like to embrace and wax lyrical regarding some later technologies.
Volvo was not an enormous company like Ford or general motors, and like Saab was all the more interesting for this, however where the giants did score was abundant wealth to invest in the latest technologies, the first I would like to cite is the overhead camshaft in its general passenger cars.
I adore the B18'B20, and although I may bring on a whole bandwagon of witch hunters to chase me in subsequent posts, its the B21/23/230 engines I think are the real stars, my thinking being that if the 120/140/160 were Ford/GM owned at the time (yes I know.. god forbid) then by 1970 or a tad earlier the 120/140/160 would have likely had OHC which =
Also in my opinion, as much as I love carbs, in particular the Skinners Union, which is a remarkable piece of metering technology, nothing compares to Fuel injection for power and efficiency and dare I say even....reliability.
Volvo did of course adopt the latter early on with the advent of the B20E from, as Clan mentioned 1969. It was 75 when the first cars became available from Volvo with OHC, namely the 244 although the DL had a single carb, but was rated the same power as the twin carb B20..and the GL added injection.
Interestingly the 244 arrived overseas I believe in 74 to USA and/or Canada and arrived with....the B20 engine, albeit with (do chime in here if I'm wrong on any of this Clan) electronic ignition.
The third thing to greatly enhance the petrol engine, again IMHO, was turbocharging, often cited as being first introduced on a production car by Saab with their 99 Turbo (I had one in the early 90's) but in fact the Porsche 924 Turbo claimed this title, but the first company to use it in production engines was....Volvo in the 1950's no less albeit on Diesel truck engines.
I'm talking Automotive industry before anyone starts citing the Aerospace industry where, Fuel injection, overhead cams four valves per cyclinder came many years before, and yes alright The Duesenberg model J notwithstanding (supercharged though not turbochrged)
Well that's the Amaz'in useless information half hour over...sorry folks
