Wheezing by means of the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden, surrounded by a literal sea of cerulean velour, vinyl and polyester, blasting Abba on FM, I felt just like the disco period famous person I’d at all times longed to be. Pedestrians pointed and mouthed OMGs, building staff ushered me previous with grandiose waves and pensioners scratched their balding heads, their muddled brains additional addled by a definite case of does-not-compute.
It wasn’t me, clearly, it was the automotive: a black sapphire 1979 Volvo 264 TE that will as properly have had East German parade flags on its entrance fenders.
Again within the late Seventies and early Nineteen Eighties, in case you had been a high-level East German functionary, and also you wanted a automobile befitting your standing, you had restricted choices. The Chilly Conflict was roiling, western imports to the Japanese Bloc had been forbidden and reviled as decadent, and Russian automobiles had been, properly, Soviet. “You couldn’t purchase a Cadillac, or a Mercedes-Benz, and also you wouldn’t desire a Zil,” says Hans Hedberg, a veteran Swedish journalist who now runs Volvo’s heritage actions.
Perpetuating its decades-long efficiency as an ostensibly impartial nation, Sweden maintained financial relations with some international locations behind the Iron Curtain, and the GDR was one in every of them. So when head of state Erich Honecker and his core apparatchik minions wanted a automobile that expressed their exalted standing, they got here Sverige-ward, to the nation’s largest carmaker.
As a template for its govt adaptation, Volvo determined to make use of the recently-introduced, upscale model of its rectilinear 240 sedan, the two.7-liter V6-powered 264. Working intently with famed Italian Carrozzeria Bertone, it developed what might have been the least Volvo-esque physique type ever: a limousine. Stretched 27” within the rear, bolstered so it wouldn’t twist like a challah when cavalcading round corners, and outfitted with a pair of bounce seats that pulled from the entrance seatbacks, it allegedly turned such a well-liked automobile with native bureaucrats that the unique East Berlin neighborhood during which they lived was recognized colloquially as Volvograd.
“We solely made round 400 whole,” Hedberg says. “For 1977 to 1979, they had been made by Bertone. Then, after that, from 1980 to 1983, they had been inbuilt Sweden, by our sub-supplier, Nilsson.” This firm additionally constructed stretched variations of the 240 wagon, the 245 T, with an extra row of front-facing seats, however Hedberg doesn’t have a kind of within the firm’s 270-car assortment. “Not but,” he says.
The 264 TE is, simply as you’ll think about from wise and rational Volvo, wise and rational. Manufacturing unit-stretched Cadillacs of the identical period had been ostentatious land yachts, outfitted with mammoth seven-liter engines, padded vinyl roofs, opera lamps, wire wheel covers, power-operated doorways, leather-based chauffeur seats, glass dividers between entrance and rear sections, and multi-speaker eight-track tape gamers. Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmans had a lot of this together with privateness curtains, intercoms, sunroofs, parade horns and rear air conditioners, in addition to hydraulically operated home windows and trunks that might shut with sufficient drive to crush a hand or take away a finger.
In distinction, the 264 TE’s solely nod to luxurious is a quartet of energy window switches, and a span of polished birch on every door panel. The doorways lock and unlock manually, the seats modify similarly, there’s a meek AM/FM cassette radio up entrance and there’s a tachometer, so a minimum of you’ll be able to watch the overtaxed 140 hp V6 PRV breathe (a three way partnership with Peugeot, Renault and Volvo that didn’t actually fulfill any of them.)
What I assumed was an old-school intercom connecting the entrance left to rear proper seats was really a pair of map lights on chrome goosenecks, prone to facilitate studying prime secret paperwork earlier than burning them. With this in thoughts, there may be a large number of ashtrays, after all, and the one self-importance mirror I might discover was one which folded out from the within of the glovebox door. Maybe this was a sidelong nod to thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who stated: “Somewhat, allow us to be extra easy and fewer useless.”
I puzzled if a timer dial subsequent to the driving force’s seat may management some form of further rear seat heater for political posteriors through the daunting East German winters, however I ought to have recognized higher as this was utilitarian as properly. “That’s an engine block heater — electrical,” Hedberg says.
Even when totally unfolded, the bounce seats couldn’t maintain an grownup human. I crammed myself into one, my knees pressed to my chest and the driving force’s seatback, my ft dangling above the blue polyester carpeting. Hedberg giggled as he took a photograph, and I wormed my method out. He folded the seatback atop the tiny cushion. The again was padded in matching loomed fur.
“It really works higher as a footrest,” he says and factors to the shiny blue vinyl headliner, which spans the automotive’s lengthy inside like an inverted David Hockney pool. “It’s refined. Swedish. Not flashy.”
For these few who necessitated much more luxurious, Volvo made simply two very particular variations. Stretched an extra 20 inches over the limousine — making them about 4 ft longer than an ordinary 264 — and outfitted with a half-convertible prime over a pair of dealing with leather-based rear benches. The so-called 264 TE Landaulet was constructed only for Honecker.
I tease Hedberg that each different good dictator of the period — Idi Amin, The Shah of Iran, Anastasio Somoza, Papa Doc Duvalier, Nicolae Cesusescu — needed to make do with a run-of-the-mill 600 Laundaulet. Mercedes made almost 60 of these, so Volvo’s providing is arguably extra uncommon. I ask Hedberg if he has a 264 TE Landaulet in his assortment. He shakes his head, “Nej. Nej.”
He has Kofi Annan’s bulletproof one-off 960 govt, and a few bulletproof stretch limos made for Sweden’s monarchy, however he lacks one in every of Honecker’s half-cab. I provide to attempt to purchase him one on eBay, however I haven’t had a lot luck. Let me know within the feedback if anybody has a lead.
