Old Volvo Wagons Are a V-8 Swap From Serious Speed
From the June 1997 issue of Car and Driver.
“I’m a little worried if you mention Paul Newman,” says Ross Converse, a former aircraft mechanic whose primary business since 1988 has been selling simple kits to slot Mustang V-8s into rear-drive Volvos.
Converse, a soft-spoken 46-year-old Mainer, is more concerned that Indy-car team owner and actor Newman will be angry with him for divulging a secret: Known fast-car lover and salad-dressing-and-salsa salesman Newman tools around his home base in Connecticut in a V-8-powered Volvo 960 wagon built by Converse.
See, one of the advantages of having a V-8-powered Volvo, especially in the Northeast, is that Swedish cars blend into the traffic like Toyotas in Tokyo. Cops and autograph hounds normally tend not to notice ubiquitous Volvo station wagons.
The other reason is this: A Volvo wagon weighs only 100 pounds more with an