The story
The 240 is the car people picture when they say Volvos used to be built like tanks. Launched in 1974, it wore big impact bumpers and a long nose designed to crumple, wrapped its passengers in a cabin built around survival, and kept that shape until 1993 because nobody could find a good reason to change it. Later cars ran a 2.3-liter 4-cylinder of about 114 hp, enough to keep up and never enough to impress, and the wagon swallowed furniture, dogs and dormitory moves without a word of complaint.
Its great weakness is one of its simplest parts. Like most cars of its era, the 240 sends power through an open rear differential, which always splits torque equally between the rear wheels. On wet grass that means a tire spinning in mud caps the torque its twin on firm ground can receive, and the car sits there with the engine howling. Winter tires, not clever hardware, were always the real cure. Owners forgive it, because almost everything else on a 240 simply keeps working, decade after decade.
