- In search of the quickest strategy to haul a number of circumstances of tasty salad dressing or spaghetti sauce house from the grocery retailer? Take into account this 1988 Volvo 740 wagon.
- Previously owned by Paul Newman, this brick-shaped Volvo packs a shock beneath the hood: a turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 from a Buick Grand Nationwide.
- This 740 is certainly one of a sequence of modified Volvo wagons the legendary actor and racer owned, and it is now on the market.
Wickedly quick on the wheel of a racing automotive and possessed of a simple cool, Paul Newman was principally Steve McQueen with out the disagreeable private baggage. To most individuals, he was the star of movies like Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child, however Newman was extra Lime Rock than Hollywood. A favourite son of Westport, Connecticut, and a household man with a wedding that lasted half a century (till his demise in 2008), he had a penchant for Volvo station wagons. Newman, although, appreciated his Swedish iron extra-spicy beneath, as proven by his 1988 Volvo 740 wagon, up for public sale on Carry a Trailer (which, like Automotive and Driver, is a part of Hearst Autos).
A duplicate of the title signifies that Newman bought this 740 in July 1988, and it is regarded as the primary Volvo he had modified to his specs. These prolonged to the fitment of a turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 out of a Buick Grand Nationwide hooked to a five-speed guide transmission sourced from a Pontiac Firebird.
In 1988, a factory-spec Volvo 740 Turbo wagon got here with a turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder good for roughly 150 horsepower. Newman’s swap greater than doubled the out there energy to roughly 320 horses (thanks partially to a chipped ECU).
Delicate bodywork is complemented by a gentle reducing on Bilstein dampers and is derived and anti-roll bars from Volvo specialist IPD. The five-spoke 16-inch wheels are basic Eighties Volvo and put on BFGoodrich g-Pressure Comp-2 A/S tires. Regardless of these clues, any bystander would suppose they have been taking a look at an peculiar previous boxy Volvo, proper up till this factor smoked its rear tires and hammered off towards the horizon.
Newman, who reportedly received his first style of racing whereas filming the Indy 500–themed 1969 movie Successful, went on to personal Volvo 960 wagons with V-8 transplants. He turned his Connecticut neighbor David Letterman on to them, too, and Jerry Seinfeld would drive a kind of for an episode of Comedians in Automobiles Getting Espresso.
Apart from motion pictures and racing, Newman’s philanthropic work is what actually places the ultimate gloss on his legend. His Newman’s Personal model has contributed some $600 million towards charitable causes since its founding in 1982. In 1988, the 12 months this Volvo was delivered, he based the Gap within the Wall Gang camp, a spot the place kids coping with severe sickness may benefit from the freedom of summer time camp.
As a nod to this charitable spirit, the vendor of this ex-Newman Volvo will donate a portion of the proceeds of the sale to the Gap within the Wall Gang camp. If a Grand Nationwide–powered sleeper wagon with celeb provenance wasn’t sufficient, casting the successful bid on this Volvo will do some good on the earth. It is probably what Newman himself would have needed.
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a contract author and photographer primarily based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British cars, got here of age within the golden period of Japanese sport-compact efficiency, and commenced writing about vehicles and folks in 2008. His explicit curiosity is the intersection between humanity and equipment, whether or not it’s the racing profession of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught each of his younger daughters easy methods to shift a guide transmission and is grateful for the excuse they supply to be perpetually shopping for Scorching Wheels.