Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo

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Sun 30 Aug 2020 17:56
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - Trilogy.

A lovely selection of cars, some sold for very reasonable amounts.

https://angliacarauctions.co.uk/classic/sat-22nd-sun-23rd-august/1989-volvo-440-turbo/

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Sun 30 Aug 2020 18:22
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - pd

Some strong money there for a lot of cars.

Why you'd want to pay £4k for a 520d SE manual with 137k miles when you could pick up from any other auction for £2500 or less I have no idea.

£7500 for a XR2 also shows just how strong 80s cars are getting price wise.

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Sun 30 Aug 2020 18:35
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - SLO76
Oooh, I like that. My dad bought a blue 440 Turbo new in 1990 and it was well liked by all of us. It wasn’t fast with all of 122bhp but it was comfy and had a cool trip computer, something which added much street cred in the 1990’s alongside the big Turbo badge on the tail. He deeply regretted selling that wee car, the better built Audi 80 16v Sport which replaced it never really made its way into his heart and the Civic VTi that followed was never really loved either.

As a salesman I bought and sold plenty of 400 series Volvo’s over the years and I found the best of the range to be the 1.7 GLT which was lively enough yet cheap to insure and it looked exactly like the turbo minus the badge and extra £1500 added to the price tag.

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Sun 30 Aug 2020 22:52
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - craig-pd130

To go a bit further down memory lane, here's a period 1990 road test of the 460 turbo from Autocar & Motor: https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/3462926183/in/album-72157617050743141/

Quite a swift car by the standards of the day. The test points out that the Volvo's in-gear acceleration in 4th & 5th beats a BMW 535i over some increments.

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Sun 30 Aug 2020 23:31
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - SLO76
I’ve a big collection of old car mags from the 80’s and 90’s, much to the irritation of swmbo. I figure it’s quite an acceptable collection of magazines for a 40 something man to covet but it doesn’t stop her throwing them at me occasionally.

The 440/460Turbo certainly wasn’t sluggish on the road, it was quite torquey but it never felt fast, in fact it didn’t feel turbocharged at all with such a low pressure charger, it only added 13bhp. I found the non-turbo 109bhp GLT not that far behind it and it was sweeter spinning without the turbo plus cheaper to buy and insure plus less likely to go wrong. It was a nice wee car all round though. Decently sized, quite comfortable and it had quite a classy image when it first appeared.

It was a much more sophisticated car than say an Orion Ghia injection but they were a bit over optimistic with the pricing as you can see from that article. Not many would’ve had one over a 320 BMW for example and an SRi or CDi Cavalier could be had for less and the rather pleasant Rover 416 GTi with leather and wood aplenty was over a grand less too. It was a nice left field choice though.

Edited by SLO76 on 30/08/2020 at 23:31

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Mon 31 Aug 2020 09:12
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - Trilogy.

The 460 always looked ungainly, never going to help sales figures while the face didn't do either 440/460 any favours.

You need a man shed to put your magazines in, and it sounds as though you need one to escape to sometimes.

Edited by Trilogy. on 31/08/2020 at 09:16

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Mon 31 Aug 2020 09:19
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - badbusdriver

I found the non-turbo 109bhp GLT not that far behind it and it was sweeter spinning without the turbo plus cheaper to buy and insure plus less likely to go wrong.

Not sure that is an accurate statement SLO. Couple of years ago i was reading an article in a magazine about the 440/460/480. Apparently re the turbo versions, the reason there wasn't a big increase in power over the n/a versions was Volvo was concerned about reliability and longevity. The result of this was twofold, one, the boost was deliberately kept low (favouring torque over outright power) and two, the engine was massively over-engineered.

Certainly going by that article there is, if anything, less chance of the turbo engined car breaking down!.

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Mon 31 Aug 2020 09:30
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - pd

IIRC on the top models, when you came to a standstill if you had the wipers on constant they switched to.......... intermittent. Clearly some sort of devil's trickery. First car to do that.

The turbo versions used the same Renault engine as the others I think?

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Mon 31 Aug 2020 09:50
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - badbusdriver

The turbo versions used the same Renault engine as the others I think?

Yes, weirdly though (as far as i know), while Renault were very big on turbo's, they didn't turbo that engine. Hence Volvo did all the work themselves.

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Mon 31 Aug 2020 11:20
Mainly for SLO - Volvo 440 Turbo - SLO76
“ Not sure that is an accurate statement SLO. Couple of years ago i was reading an article in a magazine about the 440/460/480. Apparently re the turbo versions, the reason there wasn't a big increase in power over the n/a versions was Volvo was concerned about reliability and longevity. The result of this was twofold, one, the boost was deliberately kept low (favouring torque over outright power) and two, the engine was massively over-engineered.

Certainly going by that article there is, if anything, less chance of the turbo engined car breaking down!.”


The turbo was apparently restricted because it had to put its power down through the same Renault sourced gearbox as the rest of the range and it wasn’t believed to be able to cope with substantially more torque. It wasn’t an unreliable car by any measure but the less complex injected models simply had less to go wrong. Turbo related issues weren’t unheard of but again were no more common than other turbocharged cars of the era. I wouldn’t say the Renault 1721cc motor was massively over-engineered but it certainly was a step up from the origional. To me however the best variant of this motor was the 16v 1.8 as used by Renault in the Clio and 19 16v’s. It had 15bhp more and revved quicker but it certainly had less low speed pull.

Edited by SLO76 on 31/08/2020 at 11:25

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