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History of the 240T FIA Evolution Cars

Well now you know MikeSr, there is no more debate, because the facts are now known and testified to by the project engineer in charge of the whole Evolution program Goran Sallstrom.

If you lift the hood and look at your Chassis plate it will have an SO2476 number on the top right hand side of the plate. If you chassis plate does not have that specific dedicated code somebody has converted your cars original Coffin-Nose hood and grill, to a Flat-Nose version before you got to buy the car.

It would also be interesting to know if your car still has the Silver painted grill because all 505 Evolution cars that left the factory were fitted with these Silver painted grill's, many were changed by the original dealer's to the optional black grill with the chrome strip's across the top and bottom of the grill which my own car has, and interestingly the photo of the FIA approved Evolution car has the optional Black grill with the chrome stripes.

All the Factory supported, so called "Works" cars were fitted with the plain Black grill, and each individual "Works" team laboriously cut the back out of grill individual box's horizontal blade's, so that it would pass more air! It took on average 4 hours to do this, and nobody ever proved a quantifiable gain, yet we still did it to each and every grill we had to replace, or when we built up a new car etc.

Mine has the SO2476 plate, but has the black grille with chrome top and bottom bars. The original owner was a Volvo mechanic and kept it in great original condition except for a respray. The car was an original dealer sale in Atlanta Georgia,USA.
 
Mine has the SO2476 plate, but has the black grille with chrome top and bottom bars. The original owner was a Volvo mechanic and kept it in great original condition except for a respray. The car was an original dealer sale in Atlanta Georgia,USA.

Great you and I have, have genuine Evolution car's, mine also has the optional Black grill with the horizontal chrome strip's running across the top and bottom of the grill. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xsu0jliaids0g6a/EVO-4.jpg?dl=0
 
Thanks blkaplan,

Thats a first for me so I will take it, Ha ha.
From my point of view it's kind of an unexpected "meet your heroes" moment on an obscure little American-based Volvo forum! :)

So yours is one of the US Evolution cars, not one of the Group A race cars, have I read that correctly?
When you build your replica Group A, is the intention that it be as historically accurate as possible (EFI running water injection, the embiggened K-Jet system, alloy diff housing with non-perpendicular axles for rear camber, whacky custom intercooler, etc etc)?
 
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Is that your red car? That looks like the one from EBay a year or so ago. I watch these, thinking of selling mine in the new year.

Yes, that's my Red 240T Evo, Patrick Dickman found it for me. I think it was on Ebay about 2 and a bit years ago, but Patrick knew the car, so went and checked it out for me then took it the Port for me, just so helpful and great to deal with.
 
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From my point of view it's kind of an unexpected "meet your heroes" moment on an obscure little American-based Volvo forum! :)

So yours is one of the US Evolution cars, not one of the Group A race cars, have I read that correctly?
When you build your replica Group A, is the intention that it be as historically accurate as possible (EFI running water injection, the embiggened K-Jet system, alloy diff housing with non-perpendicular axles for rear camber, whacky custom intercooler, etc etc)?

Hi Forg, I have a total of six 240's, two genuine 240 GpA Works car's, one ex the Australian Volvo Dealer Team and the other is the only surviving Eggenberger Team car.

I have three road cars, one hot rodded with a turbocharged 2.7 litre 16 valve engine, making 525 BHP and a one owner 1983 240DL European car done 60,000 miles, plus my 1983 Red Evo Car.

My sixth car is the 1983 DL bare chassis that I will build up into a replica of my first ever GpA race car, ex GTM Belgium, that we won the Wellington Street race with in 1985.
 
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That's the question: how replic-ikie you planning to make it?

And, planning on playing with it?

It will be the "Full Monty" when its finished John, I have a lot of genuine GpA spare part's, engines, Getrag gearbox's, etc, so it might take a while but I am in no hurry.

I plan to race the car in Historic events here in NZ, as a replica car.

Cheers,

Mark.
 
If you don’t mind me asking ... are there enough of us Volvo tragics around that the Group A parts are worth a lot?

I mean Group A was huge here in Oz, at least in the memory of someone who was 15 at the time, and the whole reason I’ve bothered to put ‘82 bumpers & front-clip & dash on my +T’d 242GT is due to people such as yourself & John Bowe & Robbie Francevic. Despite there still being a pretty strong anti-Volvo sentiment among people of my age in Oz, there’s still positivity towards my car when people who remember Group A see it & remember from Way Back When. :)

But I’d kinda/sorta expect that real Group A Volvo stuff might be kinda/sorta semi-affordable, whereas verifiable Sierra Cosworth or M3 or Godzilla stuff would be way beyond the means of your average enthusiast? Or is my impression due to the aforementioned general anti-Volvo sentiment in Oz?
 
If you don’t mind me asking ... are there enough of us Volvo tragics around that the Group A parts are worth a lot?

I mean Group A was huge here in Oz, at least in the memory of someone who was 15 at the time, and the whole reason I’ve bothered to put ‘82 bumpers & front-clip & dash on my +T’d 242GT is due to people such as yourself & John Bowe & Robbie Francevic. Despite there still being a pretty strong anti-Volvo sentiment among people of my age in Oz, there’s still positivity towards my car when people who remember Group A see it & remember from Way Back When. :)

But I’d kinda/sorta expect that real Group A Volvo stuff might be kinda/sorta semi-affordable, whereas verifiable Sierra Cosworth or M3 or Godzilla stuff would be way beyond the means of your average enthusiast? Or is my impression due to the aforementioned general anti-Volvo sentiment in Oz?

Hi Forg,
The 'bones' of a 240T GpA replica, are incredibly cheap compared with any other front running GpA car of that era. As an example of that fact, I recently purchased a one owner, rust free, 1983 240 DL car in Sweden, that is 100% the same body shell, and outer panels including front and rear bumpers as the Factory GpA cars used, for just $7K.

The most expensive parts are the bolt on parts, like centre lock front and rear hubs, and the genuine period Magnesium BBS wheels, and of course the Brake system. The engines are also cheap and readily available. The most expensive component is a genuine GpA Getrag close ratio gearbox, which are hard to find and worth about A$15K in good condition.

Other than the gearbox all the components have been re-manufactured from the same original VMS drawing's, so these days you can buy every thing you need brand new from within the Swedish "Brick" fraternity. I supply the genuine new GpA BBS wheels, to the fraternity and also the rear centre lock hub and axle.

The cost to build a 100% faithful replica GpA Volvo 240T race car is about US50K plus labour, and painting etc. To many this will seem expensive but it's less than half what it would cost to build a RS500 replica, so its all relative.

There were only ever about 12 so called "Factory" cars ever built, because the 240 GpA car only survived 3 years, with factory assistance, 1984/85/86. No new GpA factory cars were ever built after 1986, all though some privateers ran on in the Nordic series through to the end of 1989 and that was the finish of the 240's on the race track. However, they still live on in Tarmac rallies, dozens of them, and many producing 400 plus BHP these days, so they are quite quick and still very popular in Scandinavia.

Cheers,

Mark.
 
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This is one of the best threads ever!

Mark, thank you so much for telling us some of your experiences then and now. You are inspiring and I feel so fortunate that you have told us about yourself. Years ago I got some videos from Dave
Barton because it was near impossible to get any footage in the US of all that great racing down under.

I have a 1/43 model of the number 2 Eggenberger car. Looking forward to seeing how your buildup goes.
 
Awesome thread Mark, and welcome to the board!

Now to find out if I'm related to Goran, a few generations back....last name is Sellstrom (translated when my branch landed here in the states). THAT would be amusing! lol
 
Great stuff.

Why would Volvo go to the trouble of removing the Evolution goodies after the inspection? My best guess is that they were not approved for sale by the relevant agency (EPA, etc). Though the intercooler made it through.

Thanks.
 
^Considering the items were in the trunks of the cars, it would be quite easy to just take the items out and send them back. And, in Volvo's mind, it would've made sense, since they'd have 500 sets of Group A items to keep in inventory when/if a car got damaged or needed spare parts.

Since the intercoolers were already installed and weren't the Group A version (instead being the style used on the 1983 760 Turbo in Europe), it would've been less messy to leave them in place, than to drain the cooling systems of all 500 cars, remove the intercoolers, install the non-intercooled (and non-turbo) radiator hoses, etc, and install the non-intercooled oil cooler brackets, bracketry for the turbo "hat" on the throttle body, the plumbing, and non-intercooled overboost switch.
 
Great stuff.

Why would Volvo go to the trouble of removing the Evolution goodies after the inspection? My best guess is that they were not approved for sale by the relevant agency (EPA, etc). Though the intercooler made it through.

Thanks.

Hi Carl,

Goran, readily admits that the Evolution T3B Turbo, as used by the GpA cars, had way to much turbo lag to be sold for road use, an further more, as the majority of the 500 Evolution cars were fitted with Automatic transmissions, The ECU's at that point in time could not deal with the turbo lag and in his word's were basically dangerous to drive.

The American importers were adamant that they would only except the car if they put back to standard, except for the Intercooler, which as one poster has already mentioned was the standard intercooler found in the European 1983 760 Turbo, and not the GpA custom aluminium and expensive, German L?ngerer & Reich intercooler.

The importers were equally adamant that in their view the rear wing was just plain ugly and would only be offered as a dealer fitted option, they were thus left in the trunks of the car and most ended up gathering dust in dealers spare parts departments. It seem that the American buyer also though the rear wing was ugly as very few were ever fitted as far as I can ascertain anyway.
 
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I can help out with a few of my favorite pics Mark has shared with me.

Makes complete sense, Last year I purchased the exact same 1983 Model 240DL from Patrick Dickman, CA, to use as a donor car for a replica 240T GpA car that I am planning to build to build next year. I had the shell stripped back to bare metal in an Acid bath then 2 pot epoxy primed within minuets of the bare shell emerging from the last dip, it was also totally rust free, so that was also a big bonus.

It was amazing to look at in the virgin metal, just like brand new going down the production line all those years ago. Patrick also got me the correct Flat-Nosed hood which I also acid dipped as well as the correct European model 1983 front fenders. Now all I have to do is finish paint it, then assemble all of my spare good GpA bits and pieces into it, and she should be a runner as they say.

Stripped and ready to go to acid dipping.

MP16.jpg



Just out of the acid bath.

MP18.jpg


MP19.jpg


MP20.jpg


MP21.jpg




I have not been able to work out how to post pictures on this forum, otherwise I would post some pic's of my various Volvo 240's.
Hi Forg, I have a total of six 240's, two genuine 240 GpA Works car's, one ex the Australian Volvo Dealer Team and the other is the only surviving Eggenberger Team car.

I have three road cars, one hot rodded with a turbocharged 2.7 litre 16 valve engine, making 525 BHP and a one owner 1983 240DL European car done 60,000 miles, plus my 1983 Red Evo Car.

My sixth car is the 1983 DL bare chassis that I will build up into a replica of my first ever GpA race car, ex GTM Belgium, that we won the Wellington Street race with in 1985.

Australian Volvo Dealer Team car:

MP01.jpg


MP02.jpg


MP03.jpg


MP05.jpg


MP06.jpg


MP07.jpg




Eggenberger Team Car:

MP24.jpg


MP25.jpg


MP26.jpg


MP27.jpg


MP28.jpg


MP29.jpg



European 242DL with 60,000km:

MP22.jpg


MP23.jpg



Original 1983 242TI "Evo" "Flatnose" "Flathood" "Homologation" or whatever we are calling them these days. Interesting note: This is the same car Forza digitally scanned for the game.

MP09.jpg


MP10.jpg


MP12.jpg


It's VIN tag with the "SO2476".
MP14.jpg
 
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