Saltbox: Ma bought Arthur brand new. He was her 60th birthday present to herself. She took delivery a week early, on January 14, 1990. When Ma ordered him, she told the sales manager at the Volvo dealer "Order me a blue one, with the automatic, no other options." When asked which blue, she chose that one as the other was too dark. LOL The ONLY thing that does not work as new are the front seat heaters. That picture was taken 2 years ago, on the day he got his semi-annual wash and wax and tire change. Those are Nokian Haakipiliitta snow tires on there. 185/70 in front, 195/70 in back. In the summer, we run 205/70R14s all the way around. 14s are getting hard to find, so next time he needs summers, he will get a set of 15s, and I'll go to the 205/60R15. People forget that the wagons take a different size than the sedans. The sedans take a 185/70R14, but these wagons take a 185R14, which is a 78 series, and damned near impossible to get. Arthur has about 155,000 miles on the clock, and has been through every winter for the last 24 years. Looking pretty good for the original paint, no?
MikeT, Arthur looks amazing and is just a baby with only 155,000 on the clock. You will also find the value of the old 240 wagons in good shape such as Arthur are increasing in value, as they are becoming more rare to find and the collectors really love them. Also I always looked at the old RWD Volvo's as the closeset cars to the classic American RWD wagons. Perhaps the older E class Benz wagons fit into this simularity as well. The Country Squire has the 400 CI engine in it. I had fogotten what it was like to drive a car that only gets 10 to 12 miles to the gallon.
Saltbox, believe it or not, that 400 cid can get very close to the highway mileage of the Volvo 2.3 litre. You will gain close to 5 mpg just by upgrading the the exhaust to a dual 2 1/4 inch system with X cross over and something like a DynaFlow muffler. That will gain you about 20 horsepower too. I had a 78 Grand Marquis with the 400 for a short while, and it would easily do 400 miles on a single fill, and that was before I got to upgrading much. Eventually you can upgrade to a mechanical AOD transmission and gain considerably more. The main thing to remember is that you need a bit more timing than factory spec, and to keep the carburetor running a bit more lean than most people do. You want to get the revs as high as possible using the air/fuel adjustment, then turn the idle down with that adjustment on the throttle linkage. Any time I've done that, I've actually had problems with the cable sticking a little at first as it has never been turned down that far before!
Salt, your Squire is beautiful, (so's your Volvo but I'm a huge Ford fan!) Congratulations and welcome to the forum.
Hey thanks, and yeah I really do love the Squire, she's going into Winter storage this weekend. Already thinking of spring and summer car shows.
Thanks for all of the Welcomes everyone, looking forward to meeting many of you and learning more about the wagons we love.
