• Today’s pick from the Bring a Trailer auction site is this Volvo 244DL, a tribute to road cycling’s greatest hero.
• This era of Volvo sedan is a design icon: simple, boxy, honest.
• It was notably durable, if not exactly swift, one reason that the 240-series Volvo has a huge fan base. This one’s cycling support vehicle livery just adds to the charm.
The appeal of a boxy Volvo is easy to understand. They are simple, immensely pragmatic, durable, and safe. Thanks to a total lack of pretentiousness and a two-decade production run, the 240 is familiar and beloved. It’s the car that makes being square and nerdy actually kind of cool. And the example up for auction this week at Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is a machine that combines the worlds of car geeks and cycling nerds.
Finished in the orange livery of a Team Molteni support vehicle, this 1977 240DL comes complete with a roof-mounted bicycle rack bearing a road-racing bike set up like that of Tour de France legend Eddy Merckx. The whole package is a fun tribute to a bit of Swedish-Belgian-Italian cycling history.
The Greatest Road Rider
Édouard “The Cannibal” Merckx was the sort of champion cyclist to make anyone with more than one pair of clip-in cycling shoes swoon. Born in Belgium just a month after the end of World War II, he started riding at an early age and found success almost immediately. By the end of his career in the late 1970s, Merckx had won five Tours de France, five Giros d’Italia, and Spain’s grand tour, La Vuelta. He also won three cycling World Championships and followed up a double grand-tour win in 1974 with a win at the UCI Road World Championships, thus making him the first rider to win cycling’s triple crown. Basically, we’re talking Mario Andretti in Spandex.
The “Cannibal” nickname was bestowed by the daughter of a teammate and referred to his tenacious refusal to let anyone else win. This laser focus made him a household name at the time, at least among cycling enthusiasts, and Merckx is still regarded as the greatest road rider of all time.
Many of his wins came while riding as a professional for the Italian team Molteni. The team favored a striking orange racing livery on its jerseys, and the support vehicles were likewise painted bright orange. In the club’s early days, Simcas and the like carried the bikes to race day. When Merckx was at the peak of his career, Molteni was mostly Volvos.
This 1977 Volvo DL is a couple model years too new for an exact match, but it nonetheless wears the Team Molteni colors with pride. Powered by a 2.1-liter four-cylinder engine punching out a little over a hundred horsepower and fitted with the four-speed-plus-overdrive manual transmission, this is very much a Volvo of the “world’s fastest tractor” variety.
Some cosmetic issues with peeling clear-coat are mentioned in the listing, and there’s some corrosion noted. At heart, this 244 is a Volvo with 237,000 miles on the odometer, and it has its fair share of wear. Then again, Volvos from this era tend to have the durability of granite. This thing will still be on the road when the last gallon of gasoline is produced or until the heat death of the universe. Whichever comes first.
Complete with the Eddy Merckx tribute steel-frame road bike on the roof rack, this car can’t be beat for charisma-per-dollar appeal. All the Cars and Coffee folk’ll love it and so will the Sunday-morning pack cycling crowd. And so will the Volvo geeks. Expect thumbs up from everyone.
With four days to go until the auction ends on Sunday, October 30, bidding sits at $4444. Don’t miss out on your chance to snap it up. The Cannibal would never forgive you.
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Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
