Volvo 200 Series

Volvo 200 Series

Volvo Cars

Production1974–1993 / 2,862,573 produced

This is the catalogue record of the Volvo 200 Series, one of 83 models Volvo Cars has placed in the historical record and one of more than seventeen thousand cars the MotorJury library tracks. The record places its introduction in 1974. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.

The era it was born into

To read the Volvo 200 Series properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1970s were the decade the oil crises rewired the industry — emissions rules, safety bumpers and fuel economy suddenly mattered as much as horsepower, and Japanese manufacturers went global. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the Lamborghini Lamborghini Countach, the Volkswagen Volkswagen Scirocco, the Jeep Jeep Cherokee — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.

The numbers, read closely

On paper, the Volvo 200 Series reads like this: the record lists its engine as gasoline engine; drive goes through 4-speed Manual transmission / manual / 4-speed manual with overdrive / 5-speed manual / 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 4-speed automatic; the layout is Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.

Its place in the Volvo Cars story

Within Volvo Cars's own catalogue the Volvo 200 Series sits alongside the Volvo 140 Series (1966), the Volvo 142, the Volvo 145 (1967), the Volvo 164. The record names the 240: Volvo 140 Series / 260: Volvo 164 as its predecessor and the 240: Volvo 940 / 260: Volvo 760 as its successor, fixing its place in the model line's chronology. Design is credited to Jan Wilsgaard. Assembly is recorded at ubl |Sweden: Torslanda (Torslandaverken) |Sweden: Kalmar (VKA) |Australia: Clayton (Motor Producers Ltd) |Belgium: Ghent (VCG) |Canada: Halifax (VHA) |Indonesia: North Jakarta (PT..

How this catalogue works

This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.

Why concepts and prototypes are in the library

Most car databases stop at series production. This one deliberately does not, because concept cars, racing specials and cancelled prototypes are where the industry thinks out loud — the ideas tested in public years before they reach a showroom. Holding them beside the production cars they inspired makes the lineage legible: nearly every landmark road car in this library has a concept ancestor somewhere in the catalogue, and the connections run through the era links on every page.

From catalogue to ownership

The catalogue records what the Volvo 200 Series was; the ownership database records what it is like to own. MotorJury computes a verdict for every model year the United States federal record covers — complaints, recalls, real economy — refreshed nightly, with no opinions involved. If this car reached the American market, its verdicts are in there.

Specifications

Transmission4-speed Manual transmission / manual / 4-speed manual with overdrive / 5-speed manual / 3-speed Automatic transmission / automatic / 4-speed automatic
LayoutFront-engine, rear-wheel-drive
Body style2/4-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon (242/244/262/264) / 5-door station wagon / estate (245/265)
Wheelbase104.3 in
Assemblyubl |Sweden: Torslanda (Torslandaverken) |Sweden: Kalmar (VKA) |Australia: Clayton (Motor Producers Ltd) |Belgium: Ghent (VCG) |Canada: Halifax (VHA) |Indonesia: North Jakarta (PT.
DesignerJan Wilsgaard
Predecessor240: Volvo 140 Series / 260: Volvo 164
Successor240: Volvo 940 / 260: Volvo 760
Catalogue IDQ1341143

Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.

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What it costs to run

Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.

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Rivals of its era

Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.