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Junkyard Gem: 1997 Volvo V90

Volvo's "Brick Era" of squared-off rear-wheel-drive machines lasted from the debut of the 144 in 1966 all the way through the 900 Series cars of the 1990s, with the wildly successful 240 being the most iconic of the breed on our shores. The final chapter of the Swedish Brick saga came in the 1997 and 1998 model years, when the 960 sedan and wagon were rebadged as the S90 and V90, respectively. Here's one of those cars, a refrigerator-colored (and refrigerator-shaped) V90 wagon that got forcibly retired after a crash in Northern California. Volvo revived the V90 name in 2016, and you can buy a new V90 right now if you so choose. Today's Junkyard Gem, however, is the culmination of four decades of improvement to the original 140 design (itself based on much of the Amazon's chassis features and sharing plenty of components with the 1940s-era PV Series cars), while the current V90 comes straight out of the 21st century. I've been going out of my way to document just about every discarded 140 and 240 wagon I find, with some 740s and 940s mixed in. Many Volvo longroof owners still maintain a fanatical devotion to the rear-wheel-drive bricks, and I've found some of these cars in junkyards with impressively high final odometer readings. The fuel-efficiency and interior-space limitations of the old-timey brick design kept 960 sales lower than those of their predecessors, though, and I haven't met any 960 owners who share the level of devotion that 145 and 245 owners lavish on their cars. This car just squeaked past 150,000 miles during its 24 years on the road. The body and interior look to have been in very nice condition, showing that meticulous owners took good care of this car throughout its life, but then it got T-boned on the right side. This sort of damage isn't worth fixing on a quarter-century-old European wagon, and so here it sits. This engine compartment looks very similar to that of the old 240, though this modern 3.0-liter, DOHC straight-six and its 181 horses runs counter to the super-sensible spirit of most of those 1970s Goteborg bricks. The 960 was far more plush than its ancestors, and priced accordingly. In 1997, this car's list price started at $35,850 (about $60,660 in 2021 dollars). By comparison, a new 1975 245 wagon had an MSRP of $5,795 (about $29,940 today).

Five vehicles named Top Safety Pick+ including new Civic, MKZ

In an attempt to help push vehicle safety to a higher level, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety created a stricter Top Safety Pick+ rating last year, which incorporates a brutal small overlap test and requires cars to get Good ratings in four out of the five categories (and no less than Acceptable in the fifth). Joining the list of the safest cars of 2013, the 2013 Volvo XC60, Lincoln MKZ, Honda Civic (sedan and coupe) and the 2014 Mazda6 have all received the coveted TSP+ rating.
The Mazda6 and Lincoln MKZ have both been completely redesigned, and both received Acceptable ratings in the small overlap test. The Honda Civic, coming off its emergency refresh for 2013, is the first small car to be subjected to the small overlap test, and IIHS says that one of the car's many upgrades includes a stiffer front structure allowing it to receive Good ratings in all categories. Similarly, the XC60 gets all Good ratings thanks to, according to IIHS, Volvo updating the airbag software allowing the side airbags to inflate during the small overlap test.
The 2014 Subaru Forester has not yet been subjected to the small overlap test, so it must make do with just a Top Safety Pick rating until the IIHS tests small utility vehicles, which is expected to happen later in the spring.

Volvo already planning road-going V8 Supercar?

After decades of cat-and-mouse battle waged between Holden and Ford, Australia's V8 Supercars series has expanded considerably. Mercedes and Nissan both joined the grid last season, and Volvo has followed suit this year. So when 2014 championship kicked off earlier this month in Adelaide, everyone was watching to see who would come out on top.
The answer is Holden, which took first place in all three of the weekend's races. In fact the General Motors division locked out the podium in the first and third races and took first and third places in the second race, letting just one other manufacturer onto the podium the entire weekend - and that was Volvo. The Polestar S60 scored second place on its first race weekend, beating all the Nissan Altimas, the Mercedes E63 AMGs, the Ford Falcons and most of the Holden Commodores.
Now that's hardly winning the championship, but it's a very solid debut. And that point was not lost on the people back at headquarters in Sweden, who are already thinking about making a roadgoing version of the race-spec V8 Supercar.