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240 Air Dams

districtmotors

New member
Joined
Aug 24, 2016
Location
Shaker Heights, OH
Hi, I am curious as to whether it was year, model, or option that determined whether the air dams installed on 86-93 240s were black plastic or matched the color of the car. Anyone know?
 
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I think all of them came with the air dams, mine's an '87 DL and it has one.
About whether they came painted or not, I'm not sure, mine was painted as well.
 
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I am starting to think the 90-93 DL run had all black and the color was a feature of the GL models here in the USA prior to 90.

I was thinking it was related to the color (either metallic vs. non-metallic, or that might cover all the two stage paints).

Here's my '90 240 DL with body matched gray (this car had clear coat for sure...it was chipping / scratched / peeling by the time I owned the car in '06):

121406796.jpg


121406797.jpg


My white '92 240 has a black one and my shell white '87 240 DL had a black one.

The early cars that didn't have an air dam had solid front rotors. I think I once saw an '87 DL in the junkyard with solid front rotors but by '86/'87 they were changing over to only vented rotors, so I expect near every 86+ would have an air dam originally. :e-shrug: As for color... :e-shrug: :e-shrug:
 
1978-91 cars usually had painted, if metallic. 1992-93 had black no matter what. In Europe, it seems that the enamel colors also received body color spoilers.

Officially, Volvo called the 1978-79 GT style spoiler an "air dam", and the 1980-on snowshovel style was called a spoiler.

-J
 
1978-91 cars usually had painted, if metallic. 1992-93 had black no matter what. In Europe, it seems that the enamel colors also received body color spoilers.

Officially, Volvo called the 1978-79 GT style spoiler an "air dam", and the 1980-on snowshovel style was called a spoiler.

-J

So a 1992 like this(spoiler) was likely repainted, or something depending on manufacturer date ?

* Note it is not a GL as stated in the ad ......:roll::roll:

http://smclassiccars.com/volvo/149100-1992-volvo-240-gl-4-door-23l.html
 
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Seems to me like only metallic and white cars ’81-91ish have painted airdams. After ’91 or ’92 they’re all black plastic. A quick look at 240’s ’81-93 for sale confirms this.
 
My 1991 240 with white paint (code 189) came with a non painted black airdam. I think it is a base model
 
Generally it also made a difference what the trim level was. An early 80s commando bumper DL could have nothing or a small plastic extension. It wasn't quite a spoiler but was attached to the bumper and made it look finished. Where as a GL or GLT would all have the spoiler commando type. Those all seeem to be painted car color. My 81 and 82 turbos are car color. My 93 wagon is black.

I think it was with the proliferation of the plastic covered bumpers that the spoiler painting scheme became as described in the above posts.

What at lot of folks forget is much of the 240 improvements were on the 260 series and then moved to the 240 platform. The bumper spoiler is one example on the commando bumper cars and also the four rectangle headlight setup with coffin hood. That started on the 260 series and was moved to the 240 cars in 1981.
 
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