Volvo 340 (1984) – Into the Wild

There are many things about this Volvo 340 that make it quite clear that a lot has changed since it was built. To start with, it is a compact sedan, a type of car that you hardly find in the showrooms in our part of the world. Furthermore, this Volvo was built in the Netherlands. The last Dutch Volvo was the S40/V40, which rolled off the production line in Born until 2004, so some time ago. After all, there is a Renault engine in it, you can’t imagine that in a Volvo for a long time.

The 340 was therefore one of the most ‘special’ Volvos ever if you look at its history. It arose from Daf’s P900 project, which should have led to the larger Daf 77 after the Daf 66. Ultimately, Volvo took over and – in short – released the car under its own name. According to some Volvo enthusiasts, the 340 is not really a Volvo, but hey, that shouldn’t spoil the fun.

The 340 (and 360) was a familiar sight in the Dutch streets for years, so it’s nice to see one again. You don’t see them that often anymore. Certainly such a sedan version has become rare. AutoWeek forum member Johan82 spotted it and placed these photos in the ‘what did you see today’–topic.

The 38-year-old 340 still seems to be in very good shape and the thicker wheels and the moose sticker make us suspect that somewhere in its existence an enthusiast has been working on it to brighten it up a bit. It has been an enthusiast’s car for a while now. You have to have a soft spot for such a 340 to go on the road with it nowadays, because new it was not a very leading car and nowadays such a 340 is downright archaic. So nice to see that someone fell for it at the beginning of this year and bought it, although hopefully the love is not as short-lived as with the previous owners. It has changed hands five times in the past six years. Its first owners were a bit more loyal: until 1999, as far as we can tell, the 340 stayed with the person who bought it new in 1984 and then it stayed with the second owner until 2017.