26/4!

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
04/26/2016 at 18:42 • Filed to: Volvo, 264, East Germany, Socialist workers paradise

Time for a trip to Sweden, but also to Italy.

Meet the Volvo 264 TE.

The 264, as we all know, was the four door, six cylinder version of the Volvo 200 series which was a tarted up 100 series and has the unusual distinction of outlasting the car that was supposed to replace it, the 700 series.

Your typical 264 was a four door saloon with five seats and a PRV 2.7 V6. So far, so good. Not far enough or good enough for the political classes of the former East Germany though who wanted something more in keeping with their station in life. A Tatra would seem to the obvious and socialist choice but they turned their attentions westward. A Merc or anything else from the other Germany was politically unacceptable as it might give the manifestly false impression that the fascist west could make better cars so a socialist substitute was found. Sweden was near at hand, neutral and lefty. Volvo didn’t actually make a lwb 200 series but a trip to Bertone solved that difficulty and the result was the 264 TE, a 262 (yes, a two door, you can tell by the rear side windows) which got itself stretched to accommodate seven seats and two extra doors.

Note the privacy curtains at the rear and the slightly uneven window line.

Top trivia: Volvos of that era had headlight wipers. Not in America though where they were omitted on the grounds of being foreign and quite possibly Communist and so plastic plugs were used to seal the holes provided for their fitting.