Volvo 144 (1968) – Into the Wild

About two months ago we hoisted a wonderfully fresh Volvo Amazon on the In het Wild stage on several fronts. The Amazon is quite a common classic here in the Netherlands, but such a four-door is quite rare. A nice spot from Jente Horsting, who also encountered an ‘early’ Volvo 343 earlier. Today she delights us again with a Volvo, although it is purely a matter of chance that it is again a car of that brand. The spot itself is not particularly coincidental: Amazon’s successor 140 series (in this case the four-door, so the 144) is, after all, also a fairly common car in our country for its age.

Still, it’s about time to put the 144 in the spotlight, because it hasn’t appeared in this section before. It is quite literally in the sun and unfortunately that also exposes an annoying side effect of this period of the year. The 144 is almost buried under a layer of pollen, but that has undoubtedly been bothering more car owners lately. If you are parked under certain trees, it is almost impossible to keep your car clean. We therefore look through that, because under all those pollen there seems to be a neat 144.

The fact that it looks a bit dirty, undoubtedly does not reflect neglect, because the owner has been with this 144 for twenty years. Then you can be sure that it is a hobby. It is quite an old 144, because the introduction was barely two years before this copy was built. It has even stood next to the Amazon in the showroom. You can imagine that it was a fairly big switch from the still quite voluptuous Amazon to the 140 series. Especially as a 145 it was a pretty angular box of a car. Ultimately, the design of the 140, which incidentally came from Jan Wilsgaard’s Amazon, would be the start of a decades-long rather angular design direction at Volvo.

The license plate data of the 144 still raises some questions. In addition to the NL sticker, there is also an A sticker on the tailgate, which suggests that the car once belonged in Austria. According to the license plate, however, it is an original Dutch car, so that sticker may have been added later because the owner has something with Austria. What is even more vague is the power source that the 144 has on paper. It would be the 2.0 four-cylinder, the B20, which, as far as we know, was introduced in 1969. However, the car dates from 1968. It is possible that a different engine was once installed, or the B20 was already there in 1968. It is of course also possible that something has been registered incorrectly, although the power (90 hp) and the exact cylinder capacity (1,986 cc) corresponds to that of the B20 and not to the B18. In any case, he also likes LPG. Anyway, keep rolling!