RAPTOR479
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2022
- Location
- Revere, MA
Lurker for some time, relatively active on the Discord, finally decided to make a proper thread on my girl Gilda.
This was the first time I saw this gold 1992 240 in person, on a warm September day down a side street in Medford Massachusetts, I didn't know what to make of it, by this point I'd spent the last 6 months scouring the depths of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for a 240 to buy checking an obscene amount of times a day for new listings, having generally resolved by now that I wanted to buy one as a first car. Said six months consisted of a lot of staring at listings of cars too far away for me to get to, and one encounter with an absolutely beat blue automatic 240 in Hyannis.
This particular car had been an insane stroke of luck, appearing one morning in September 2021 on Craigslist listed in Medford MA, a mere half-hour from where I live, this was the listing as it was the first time I saw it.
Despite the listing price of $8000, I jumped on it immediately, figuring it was worth a shot to at least find out why the price was so high, as it turned out, through emails with the seller, the $8000 number wasn't the asking price, and was, by his own admission, to deter lowballers, he never stated an actual price to me through said emails, however.
And so it began, after convincing dad to drive out to Medford one weekend to go see the car, which was in of itself an ordeal, and his generally not-so optimistic attitude about the validity of a 30-year old Swedish car as a first car, we arrived, and I took the picture at the top of this thread. That mightve been the best angle to photograph from, as the clear on the hood was gone, and you cant see it from there. Eventually the seller came out and we got to talking about the car, as stated in the listing it had front and rear IPD sway bars, an IPD adjustible panhard rod, IPD lowering springs and bilstein B6 shocks, an IPD sport catback, as well as GT braces and a (now NLA) IPD front strut tower brace. The car had no visible body rust, the rockers and pinch welds were great and the spare tire wells (buttcheeks) were spotless. At the time my knowledge of 240s was generally okay, and me and the seller had a long conversations about old Volvos and this 240, which the owner before him had named "Gilda" after Gilda Radner of SNL.
The car took two tries to start, which was odd, but the seller chalked that up to possible grit in the fuel lines as he'd recently replaced the in-tank fuel pump (this was not the issue, more on that later)
The seller himself was great, a Volvo enthusiast and absolutely meticulous with maintenance, the CL listing itself essentially being a giant list of parts replaced and work done from 2019 when he'd purchased the car to 2021. With him only selling the car because of a move to London, here's part of that list.
The test drive itself was also great, the car ran great, the handling was great, the M47 Manual transmission worked, the car handled residential and highway driving without breaking a sweat and dad, a (ford) mechanic of 35 years, couldn't find any substantial problems with it. It was during this test drive that me and the previous owner actually started talking about price, I had an alright amount of money saved, enough for a good 240. The first number he threw at me was $5500, which was over my budget, so I followed up with essentially asking the lowest he'd be willing to go, he answered $4000, and I answered "sold". We took the car back to his house, we shook hands, I agreed to buy it, and he said he'd drive it to my house the next day along with a trunk full of parts I was getting and a set of scorpius wheels.
From here, I was very excited, everything seemed to have gone to plan, but if anything is typical with 240 ownership, there is no such thing as "going to plan"
The next day, after school, I arrived home at the same time that a certain metallic Gold 240 pulled onto my street, we unloaded parts from the car and the owner asked me if I wanted to go for one more test drive to get more acquainted with driving the car, since to that point I'd never driven another manual transmission car, not a single family member or friend had one to learn on. So we took the car to an empty lot off the lynnway to practice.
At first everything went okay, until, expectably, I stalled it. Usually this wouldn't be an issue, I've stalled the car plenty of times to date, but this time there was a problem, it wouldn't start again.
To Be Continued
This was the first time I saw this gold 1992 240 in person, on a warm September day down a side street in Medford Massachusetts, I didn't know what to make of it, by this point I'd spent the last 6 months scouring the depths of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for a 240 to buy checking an obscene amount of times a day for new listings, having generally resolved by now that I wanted to buy one as a first car. Said six months consisted of a lot of staring at listings of cars too far away for me to get to, and one encounter with an absolutely beat blue automatic 240 in Hyannis.
This particular car had been an insane stroke of luck, appearing one morning in September 2021 on Craigslist listed in Medford MA, a mere half-hour from where I live, this was the listing as it was the first time I saw it.
Despite the listing price of $8000, I jumped on it immediately, figuring it was worth a shot to at least find out why the price was so high, as it turned out, through emails with the seller, the $8000 number wasn't the asking price, and was, by his own admission, to deter lowballers, he never stated an actual price to me through said emails, however.
And so it began, after convincing dad to drive out to Medford one weekend to go see the car, which was in of itself an ordeal, and his generally not-so optimistic attitude about the validity of a 30-year old Swedish car as a first car, we arrived, and I took the picture at the top of this thread. That mightve been the best angle to photograph from, as the clear on the hood was gone, and you cant see it from there. Eventually the seller came out and we got to talking about the car, as stated in the listing it had front and rear IPD sway bars, an IPD adjustible panhard rod, IPD lowering springs and bilstein B6 shocks, an IPD sport catback, as well as GT braces and a (now NLA) IPD front strut tower brace. The car had no visible body rust, the rockers and pinch welds were great and the spare tire wells (buttcheeks) were spotless. At the time my knowledge of 240s was generally okay, and me and the seller had a long conversations about old Volvos and this 240, which the owner before him had named "Gilda" after Gilda Radner of SNL.
The car took two tries to start, which was odd, but the seller chalked that up to possible grit in the fuel lines as he'd recently replaced the in-tank fuel pump (this was not the issue, more on that later)
The seller himself was great, a Volvo enthusiast and absolutely meticulous with maintenance, the CL listing itself essentially being a giant list of parts replaced and work done from 2019 when he'd purchased the car to 2021. With him only selling the car because of a move to London, here's part of that list.
The test drive itself was also great, the car ran great, the handling was great, the M47 Manual transmission worked, the car handled residential and highway driving without breaking a sweat and dad, a (ford) mechanic of 35 years, couldn't find any substantial problems with it. It was during this test drive that me and the previous owner actually started talking about price, I had an alright amount of money saved, enough for a good 240. The first number he threw at me was $5500, which was over my budget, so I followed up with essentially asking the lowest he'd be willing to go, he answered $4000, and I answered "sold". We took the car back to his house, we shook hands, I agreed to buy it, and he said he'd drive it to my house the next day along with a trunk full of parts I was getting and a set of scorpius wheels.
From here, I was very excited, everything seemed to have gone to plan, but if anything is typical with 240 ownership, there is no such thing as "going to plan"
The next day, after school, I arrived home at the same time that a certain metallic Gold 240 pulled onto my street, we unloaded parts from the car and the owner asked me if I wanted to go for one more test drive to get more acquainted with driving the car, since to that point I'd never driven another manual transmission car, not a single family member or friend had one to learn on. So we took the car to an empty lot off the lynnway to practice.
At first everything went okay, until, expectably, I stalled it. Usually this wouldn't be an issue, I've stalled the car plenty of times to date, but this time there was a problem, it wouldn't start again.
To Be Continued
