Junkyard Find: 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Junkyard Find: 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe

13 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin The Volvo 122S aka Amazon is not a very common sighting in American self-serve junkyards these days. In this series so far, we've seen just this '62 sedan, and I've also written about this flood-damaged '69 coupe and this '66 wagon elsewhere. On a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I spotted this well-worn but still relatively complete '66 coupe.
17 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin There's some rust, where it always happens in California cars whose weatherstripping gets powderized by smog and sun: in the corners where rainwater flowing past the windows tends to accumulate during those long, wet winters.
06 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin The good old pushrod B engine (this car came from the factory with a B18, but I see "B20″ cast into the block in this photo, indicating an engine swap). This engine looks non-grimy enough to have been a recent-ish swap.
08 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Not that B20s are in any great junkyard demand these days (having been installed in fairly common 140s and very common 240s, you can always find one in California wrecking yards), but these good-enough-to-run-but-not-great compression readings scrawled on the underside of the hood might cause some internal debate in the minds of prospective purchasers: Are those numbers from the engine in the car now? Are they from 25 years ago? Are they actually the weights, in grams, of bags of weed offered for sale by the previous owner?
19 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin The interior is grimy but most of it is still present.
09 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin I couldn't resist buying this aftermarket "Tri-Bar" Yankee Metal Products mirror. It will look good on my van. What the heck, $12.99 well spent.
14 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Disc brakes were still pretty exotic stuff in the 1966 US-market car world.
21 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin I'll bet this locking Waso gas cap was installed during the 1973 Oil Crisis. Cars with easily accessible, low-mounted fuel fillers were common siphoning targets during that era.
20 - 1966 Volvo Amazon Coupe Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Too bad about the smashed rear window.