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Once, a long time ago (about 1966, with the introduction of the 140 series), in a country far away (Sweden), a wise king (or more likely, some engineer) had a flash of insight: How about instituting a consistent numbering scheme? first digit is the series, second digit the number of cylinders, third digit the number of doors. Hence, a 164 was series 1, 6 cylinders, 4 doors (ie. a sedan), 245 was series 1, 4 cylinders, 5 doors (ie. a wagon), 345 was series 3 (never sold in the US), 4 cylinders, 5 doors (ie. a (gotcha!) hatchback). Then, as usual, the evil witch named marketing waltzed in and started mucking up the party. They started dropping the number of doors in the published model number (so cars became 240, 340, 740, etc). Then the 6 and 8 designations in the second position became ambivalent. A 260 always has a V6, a 960 always has a straight 6, but a 760 can be a V6 or a turbo 4 (and in some markets a 16 valve 4, or even a 16 valve turbo 4), a 360 is a 2 litre (B200) 340 (which had either a 1.4 or 1.7 renault straight 4). In some markets (mainly the US) the 240 was at some point in time the only model sold and had even the number dropped (so it was merely a DL or GL or whatever). Volvo itself, however, has never stopped using the full designation internally. If you look at invoices an 850 wagon was still an 855, the first generation S/V70 (the ones that looked like an 850) were 874/875, etc. I don't know the internal designations for the current cars (S/V40, S60, V70, S80), but I'm sure they're more informative than the badging.
Bram
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