2000 Volvo S40 Sedan 2.0l on 2040-cars

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Volvo developing new three-cylinder engine family

Pop the hood on a Volvo of recent vintage and you'll find four-, five-, six- and even eight-cylinder engines. But the Swedish automaker is downsizing its engines over the coming years. The new XC90, set to be revealed later this week, will use a new family of four-cylinder engines (like the one pictured above). But that's not even the end of it as emerging reports speak of a new three-cylinder engine family in the works.
The new 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine will, according to reports, help Volvo further cut its carbon emissions in line with constricting regulations in markets like Europe and Australia. There won't be quite as many versions as the four-cylinder range, which will include gasoline and diesel versions in varying states of tune, but the three-pot motor is tipped to be employed in vehicles as large as the S60 and its stablemates. Larger than that, however, and the three-cylinder engine apparently just doesn't have the necessary torque.
Expect the new three-cylinder engine to be introduced sometime later this decade, after the four-cylinder's introduction in 2016. The three-cylinder engine is also set to form the building block of an even more efficient hybrid propulsion system in the future, enabling this new engine family to stay relevant through 2025.

Volvo Concept Recharge full of sustainable materials

In June, Volvo showed us the conceptual exterior of its future vision in a swoopy wagon-like package called the Concept Recharge. The Swedes are now ready to show us the vision's interior and tell us what it's made of, calling it "a manifesto for Volvo Cars' future." With the context being Volvo's aim of selling only EVs by 2030 and being carbon neutral by 2040, the battery-electric Concept Recharge is a way for the automaker to get there and look stylish while doing it. It starts and nearly ends with employing sustainable, recyclable materials everywhere. Outside, the front and rear bumpers and the rocker panels are fashioned from flax composite. Only six percent of the materials in the specially developed Pirelli tires come from fossil resources, the rest from recycled and renewable materials like natural rubber, bio-silica, rayon and bio-resin. Every aspect of the bodywork has been shaped to increase aerodynamic efficiency, from the wheel design to the compact, upright rear end. Efficiency will also be a key development for the batteries. Volvo hasn't mentioned those yet in regard to the concept, but we know the company doesn't simply want to add more cells to increase range, since that adds weight and increases a vehicle's carbon footprint. Volvo is working with Swedish firm Northvolt on more energy-dense battery packs with shorter charging times. Inside, the Concept Recharge takes an evolutionary leap from the sustainable cabin now available in the C40 Recharge. The seat backrest and top of the instrument panel are dressed in "responsibly sourced Swedish wool" woven into a breathable, additive-free cloth. The seat bolsters and door panels areas that will see a lot of contact are covered in Tencel, a soft-touch yet durable cellulose fiber product. The floor and lower doors are wrapped in 100% wool. The seatbacks, the fronts of the headrests, and part of the steering wheel are covered in a material Volvo developed called Nordico. The company's being secretive about the composition, only telling us that Nordico's been created out of recyclable ingredients found in sustainable forests. And flax composite shows up again inside in the storage pockets, the back of the headrest, and the footrests. The automaker says that if the Concept Recharge's battery is charged using renewable energy, it would contribute less than 10 metric tons of CO2 over the wagon's lifespan. The U.S.

Junkyard Gem: 1969 Volvo 145 Wagon

Volvo managed to sell the 1940s-design PV544 and its 1950s-design Amazon descendant all the way into the mid-to-late 1960s in the United States, but those iconic machines were replaced here by one that began a line of even more iconic Volvos: the 140 Series. Starting with the 1968 model year, the 140 became available in the United States as a two-door sedan (the 142), a four-door sedan (the 144 and 164), and a station wagon (the 145). These rear-wheel-drive, brick-shaped cars later evolved into the 200 Series and its heirs, with the very last of the breed appearing here in the form of the 1998 S90/V90. That's a lot of history all wrapped up in one vehicle, and so I was pleased to find this 145 in a Denver-area car graveyard earlier this month. This car rolled out of Goteborg with a gleaming coat of Morkgron (dark green) paint and, according to this build tag, was built to California specifications. At some point, it made its way to Colorado. Very few US-market cars had six-digit odometers prior to the middle 1980s, but Volvo felt optimistic about their cars' longevity (at a time when reaching the magical 100,000-mile mark was something that rarely happened with non-Mercedes-Benz vehicles) and so now we can see that this car made it well past 200k miles. The 2.0-liter pushrod four-cylinder engine in this car can trace its ancestry back to the Amazons, P1800s, and PV544s of the early 1960s, and it was rated at 115 horsepower. A six-cylinder version of the 140 sedan, known as the 164, could be purchased here as well (though it had few American takers). But wait— what's that Detroit-looking two-barrel carburetor doing on an engine that's supposed to have a Stromberg 175? Yes, it's a GM-spec Rochester clone built at the ancient Bay City Plant (now known as GM Powertrain) in Michigan. Earlier Volvos came with a pair of British-made Skinner Union sidedrafts, which could be pretty painful to keep working right, but perhaps even the less-oddball Stromberg proved too much hassle for whoever installed this carb (which was meant to go on engines with much more displacement than a Volvo B20). Transmission choices in the 1969 140: a four-on-the-floor manual or a three-speed automatic. This car has the manual. The interior is pretty thrashed, as is usually the case with the 140s I find during my junkyard explorations.