Dormer window at the back
In several respects the Volvo 440 was not quite the Volvo like its bigger brothers. This could once be solved to some extent, as we can see from this special specimen.
For the real one that hard For Volvo fans, the Volvo 440 (and 460) has always been a bit of a difficult case. After all, it was not built in Sweden but in the Netherlands, had Renault engines and there was no Estate. The Swedish production, the often robust Volvo engines and the plenty of space in the Estates were important arguments for many Volvo buyers. Something could be done about one of those ‘negative points’.
The Volvo 440 could be transformed into an Estate. The hatchback hatch was replaced by one with a kind of dormer window in it, which suddenly turned the 440 (albeit in a somewhat awkward-looking way) into a station wagon. It didn’t work exactly the same as a regular station wagon, because when you opened the hatch, not only the rear window but also the side windows and the roof of this part rose with it. So you were essentially looking at the same thing as before the conversion, with the big difference that you could now stack higher in the back of the car.
Toncar from Berkel en Rodenrijs (a still existing dealer and restorer), which specializes in Volvos, offered this conversion. Volvo eventually put a stop to it, but not before this 1996 440 was taken care of. Volvo does not recognize the existence of this conversion. A press release from a few years ago about the history of the 440 and 460 states: “There is no Estate of the 440. But two external design studios are making a bid for such a variant. ASC Detroit in America makes a design proposal while the French Heuliez even develops a real prototype. One of these is now part of the collection of the Volvo Museum.” This does not alter the fact that there are still some ‘living’ proofs of the Toncar conversion in the Netherlands. We would like to thank Jelle van der Molen for sending us these photos!
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl