Ideas to trick out my 740 saloon

[Offgrid]

It looks fine in the picture, but it is a bit of a rat rod in fact. The 2.3 engine is great, and the fllor and body is pretty rust free. The interior is rubbish though, with broken door cards and not read lining. I've junked the rear seats as well. I bought some of the ols slab sided alloy wheels, but I think I'll put those on the estate, as I want to try to keep that as a show car. Spoked alloys would look better in my opinion.
So what would be fun to change on the saloon. I was thinking of putting a luggage grid on the boot, rather like the old sports cars. It's a naturally aspirated injection engine that came out of a 1986 240 I believe, would it be worth changing the cam to improve performance or fuel economy? I don't want to lower the vehicle, but are there any other fun things I can do to trick it out? Maybe a wood rimmed sterring wheel for example.

[john.wigley]

Door cards and head linings are well known 'grot spots' on 7 series cars, 'offgrid'. The former nearly always wrinkled and the storage bins routinely cracked; the latter sagged and disintegrated. We junked the head liner in our otherwise tidy interior estate, and the one in my wife's 'E' reg saloon showered her in debris every time she entered the car until that, too, went the same way.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'tricking out'. If, as I believe, you are looking for unusual accessories to personalise your car, there is a wide range available in Sweden, where the cars were, not unnaturally, much more prolific.

I'm thinking perhaps of a nice big pair of what the Swedes term 'extraljus'* mounted on the front, which are practical as well as decorative. A 'snow cap' over the scuttle air intake or louvres on the rear screen can also change the appearance in a subtle, relatively inexpensive, way. There are many such accessories, too many to list here. A good source of inspiration may be to look at Sweden's equivalent to eBay - Tradera.

What you decide upon must by definition reflect your personal choice. Others can only offer suggestions based on their own preferences. For example, I'm not a fan of 'boom box' sound systems or tail pipes the size of a small dustbins, so would not fit them to my car, but they might appeal to others.

Then there are custom paint jobs; anything from a discreet coachline to flames on the bonnet or a full respray, depending upon the depth of one's pockets.

Just my initial thoughts in response to your post - I'm sure others may have many more suggestions for you to consider.

Regards, John.

*Extraljus Large, powerful long range driving lamps that can turn night into day and are almost essential in the long dark nights of winter in northern Sweden.

[Forrest]

Try having a look at some of the old options catalogues to get some ideas.

https://accessories.volvocars.com/Le...R_GB_NL_DE.pdf

Personally, I think Aries or Sirius wheels would look good on a 740 saloon but it's all down to personal taste.

I've always loved the styling of the early 700 series cars and wouldn't spoil the look by tacking bits on the outside. Sounds as though it might benefit from a bit of a focus on the inside.

[360beast]

Please don't crash into Halfords and come out the other side covered in plastic tat, fake chrome add ons and general junk they just look awful! These cars look great with a hint of lowering and some slightly bigger wheels, the rest of the car is perfect as it is.

I would try to find a boot spoiler (a Volvo one not a cheap nasty eBay thing), polybush it, lower 40mm, some 16" or 17" alloys off of another model of Volvo. You can buy replica side skirts and front splitter side pieces from vparts in Sweden but they don't ship to the UK so you would need to find an intermediary in another country, I'm lucky to have my cousin in Germany for my European purchases.

For the camshaft check what you have first as you may have a V cam already. You can get a replica Vx cam from IPD in America or find a used A or V cam here.

You are lucky to not have SRS so no clock spring to worry about in the steering wheel, but again they are a safety item and cheap Chinese ones aren't up to the job, a Nardi steering wheel is very expensive but they are a very nice piece of kit.

https://twitter.com/autowolf_media/s...92174269710336

Inspiration

[RollingThunder]

This is a thread that I keep on browsing jealously - they're 900s/x90s but you might get some ideas

https://turbobricks.com/index.php?th...r-pics.178482/

[Offgrid]

Thanks for the suggestions, and I'm not a fan of Halfords. They seem to be expensive, and not the best quality for most of their stuff. I am a fan of cars such as the Austin-Healey 3000, hence the idea of the boot rack. I quite like the idea of a boot spoiler, but wonder how it would go with a rack. I feel it is one or the other. I have a problem driving down unlit country lanes at night, but I think that might be the result of dirty headlight glasses. I acquired a couple of rectangular spots to fit in the spaces in the lower front spoiler, and they will be a bit more discrete than the large front mounted spots. There is a cork effect sheet which would have been behind the roof liner. I quite like the look of that, and |I may clean and varnish it. I'm mulling over what I should do about the sun cracks in the dash behind the windscreen. I could vinyl wrap it, or I could cut it out, and fit a supplementary instrument panel.

I quite like the effect of lowered suspension, but I want to keep the vehicle as a daily driver, and I already have problems with the sump guard grounding. There is a large crack in the rear window, and I'm tempted to tint it, and the rear side windows.

btw This is a pic of my estate, and that is in great condition, so I want to keep it original.