2001 Volvo V70 2.4t Wagon 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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How the Chinese tycoon driving Volvo plans to tackle Tesla

HANGZHOU, China — "Do you know how big Volvo is?" asked Don Leclair, finance chief at Ford. It was 2008, and Leclair was responding to an offer from a little-known Chinese businessman to purchase the Swedish carmaker, which Ford owned. The businessman, Li Shufu, had a company with less than half Volvo's sales and a flagship model, King Kong, almost unknown outside China. He was politely shown the door of the "Glass House," Ford's iconic headquarters near Detroit, according to two people who were at the meeting. Ford's Leclair did not respond to requests for comment about the episode. Fast-forward to 2021 and Li Shufu's company, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, is one of the biggest-selling automakers in the world's biggest auto market. It controls not only Volvo Cars but also a clutch of global auto brands, and a significant stake in German giant Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes-Benz. These names are now part of its plans for a revolution in autos. Geely is preparing Volvo for a listing on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange as a route towards the future of transportation: One where cars are part of an electrified network of mobility services, driving themselves, connecting to each other and — like cellphones — generating an array of data and new business opportunities. It's a vision more Silicon Valley than Detroit, where traditional automakers globally are chasing another giant — Tesla Inc. Li Shufu and his advisers eventually convinced Ford to part with Volvo in 2010 for $1.8 billion. It was the first in a string of deals, tapping brands such as Lotus, Smart and the London Electric Vehicle Company to form a network that he calls a "bigger circle of friends" across industry segments. Li Shufu sees them as building blocks to help Geely compete in a future where autos are not vehicles, but "service providers," he told Reuters in his management suite at Geely's headquarters in Hangzhou, eastern China. In that business model, cars will be available on subscription and offer services such as making payments and in-car apps. They will update their own software, and spawn opportunities in the same way as the mobile operating systems developed by Apple Inc and Google. "We are trying to create an automotive ecosystem similar to Android," he said. Li Shufu, 58, recently adopted a foreign first name - Eric - because he liked the sound of it.

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.

These are the cars with the best and worst depreciation after 5 years

The average new vehicle sold in America loses nearly half of its initial value after five years of ownership. No surprise there; we all expect that shiny new car to start depreciating as soon as we drive it off the lot. But some vehicles lose value a lot faster than others. According to data provided by iSeeCars.com, trucks and truck-based sport utility vehicles generally hold their value better than other vehicle types, with the Jeep Wrangler — in both four-door Unlimited and standard two-door styles — and Toyota Tacoma sitting at the head of the pack. The Jeep Wrangler Unlimited's average five-year depreciation of 30.9% equals a loss in value of $12,168. That makes Jeep's four-door off-roader the best overall pick for buyers looking to minimize depreciation. The Toyota Tacoma's 32.4% loss in initial value means it loses just $10,496. The smaller dollar amount — the least amount of money lost after five years — indicates that Tacoma buyers pay less than Wrangler Unlimited buyers, on average, when they initially buy the vehicle. The standard two-door Jeep Wrangler is third on the list, depreciating 32.8% after five years and losing $10,824. Click here for a full list of the top 10 vehicles with the least depreciation over five years. On the other side of the depreciation coin, luxury sedans tend to plummet in value at a much faster rate than other vehicle types. The BMW 7 Series leads the losers with a 72.6% drop in value after five years, which equals an alarming $73,686. BMW's slightly smaller 5 Series is next, depreciating 70.1%, or $47,038, over the same period. Number three on the biggest losers list is the Nissan Leaf, the only electric vehicle to appear in the bottom 10. The electric hatchback matches the 5 Series with a 70.1% drop in value, but since it's a much cheaper vehicle, that percentage equals a much smaller $23,470 loss. Click here for a full list of the top 10 vehicles with the most depreciation over five years.