1966 Volvo Amazon - Crazy hot rod and track car

[RPS13]

I have been saying I will post up this project for some time now, so finally, here goes.

In a completely random moment of madness, impulse purchase on Ebay, in December 2006 I became the owner of a 1966 Volvo Amazon.





A long drive to sheffied and back in the worlds loudest transit, and it was on the driveway. The car was a non runner, but pretty much complete and wouldn't have taken too much to get it on the road as a trampy rat-rod. That was the plan to start, enjoy tax free driving, and do the car up. However, I am really bad at sticking to the simple plans and soon get crazy ideas that just escalate into absurdity. Before long I had completely stripped the car, cut the roof off it and started a roof chop and complete body rework!!!

I did start a build diary and photo all the steps, but when my computer hard drive failed 6 months ago the whole thing was lost :x

As soon as the roof was cut off the usual friends and doubters all said it would never go back on, but after a lot of careful work in my tiny single garage, I now had a much sleeker coupe.





The sharp eyed of you may also spot that I also did some further body work in this time. A lot of details were frenched in and smoothed, like the boot, rear lights, and trim lines. This was all properly done in steel and lead filling. At this point, it woul then have been a good idea to finish the body and get it driving. It already had a later Volvo B20 rally spec engine in it on twin SUs ( and a previously fitted exhaust flamer kit :twisted:) so could have been great fun, unfortunately as always I had much less sensible ideas. - Yes there are even sillier ideas than a roof chop volvo with an exhaust flamer!

The car got the whole front end stripped off, whilst i started planing major powertrain, suspension and brake upgrades. It also had some rust underneath that i wanted to check out further.











there maybe some rust hiding under the car:





End of Part 1.
To be continued....

[RPS13]

getting the car jacked up and attacking suspicions areas showed a lot of rust hidden under filler, dodgy fibre glass and newspaper repairs all hidden under fresh underseal ! :x Really irritating to find, but from a 40 year old car I really shouldn't be surprised.





there was buckets of the stuff, basically the sills were made out of bodged repairs.



Time to get some more fabrication underway, and make new panels. I did cheat for the outerskins and buy some replacement panels, but like all pattern panels for classic cars they were crap and took a lot of reworking to get them to the correct shape.













At this point, I decided if i was going this far then it was time to really let loose the crazy voices in my head and go for some of the more extreme ideas that had formed. To do that I wasnt not going to be able to build the car in the driveway and a tiny single garage, especially with the ever growing car collection (all in need of some repair) that I seem to gather around me. So, when Stu mentioned a space in a big workshop not far from home I took up the offer and used it as an excuse to get a few more tools.

...like a car rotisserie!





End of Part 2.

[RPS13]

Once in the new workshop the engine was taken out and the car was completely stripped to the bare shell, and mounted on the rotisserie.











The front subframe came home to strip and rebuild with some upgrades. The idea at the time was to make adjustable tubular wishbones, change the shock mounts to taken modern race shocks with rose jointed ends, design an upgrade brake kit, and strengthen up the subframe mounts. It was messy work for a couple of evenings getting it all ready, sandblasted and stripped.







The rear end was also stripped and The plan then was for to swap the volvos 5 link live axle setup to a longer arm 5 link, and adjustable setup based on some Gp4 Escort parts.



However, after all that I got distracted for a few months by the new drift car arriving before changing plans again. Again, A crazier idea came along, so the expensive Escort suspension kit wont be used now and will soon be up for sale.

Finally to keep my hand in with the welding there was a little bit of body work done removing the rear fuel filler above the bumper and filling the gap left. Not the safest place to put a fuel filler, or the prettiest, and I had no intentions of using the stock fuel tank.







End of Part 3

[RPS13]

Whilst this project had been going on for almost a year I kept thinking of what engine to use for the project, and having further ideas about modern suspension, brakes and access to aftermarket upgradeable parts.

I still haven't decided on the engine, but 3 ideas keep coming to mind:
- Volvo 960 3Liter straight six, with a home made twin turbo kit
- Lexus 1uz V8 on throttle bodies
- Supra 1jz turbo

The first to turn up with a bargin on Ebay will probably win out, or something sillier will come to me by surprise. However I have finally decided on what to do with the suspension!

After several outings with the Silvia which I will be using in 2008 for the BDC calander and a few proper races and sprints, the amazon is now to get a hybrid Volvo and 200sx S13 suspension set up. I can then use all the handdowns from the Silvia to upgrade the Volvo. I was already going to put a subtle cage in the Volvo, so I can now link this to a completely custom floor and subframe mounts. There also happened to be a spare 200sx at the workshop

That meant the SX had to die!



I dont need any of the body, but I do need some of the floor. The shell was actually in mint condition. I havent seen one with absolutely no rust until now so it was a bit of a shame to cut it up, but I have been removing all the body work as complete panels so if anyone wants perfect OEM repair panels to fix their rusty s13, then these are available. Contact Mr Staples if you want to make him an offer. Everything I am not using is his to sell off. There is a perfect roof panel with no sunroof for a start, and dent free rear quarters in complete lumps.

The 200sx is almost cut down now to basically a floor pan, and beside the amazon ready for the hybrid merging of the two cars. Once some more tips for the plasma cutter arrivve, then I can start getting the amazon shell prepared for its custom made floor. Until then I have a certain tall blokes Golf to finish off setting light to with the welder :-s

[RPS13]

Almost forgot to include the plans for what it will look like in the end:



It will go beyond those modifications quite a bit, but they show the major shape change to the car from the original. There is also front exhausts an a flip front clam they don't show

good night for now, there is more car destruction planned for tomorrow

[duncan]

What a project !!!

[Nik]

Wow, great project thread. Looks like you have some work to do still but it should be great when it's finished.

[blackskygtr]

MMMMMMMMMMMM Boy got skills and i have to say that i saw this on ebay when it was up for sale!!!
Small world

Good luck with the build
Jay

[ants13]

That looks like a lot of hard work!!!
it should be awesome when its done.

[Ben]

Now it all becomes clear ... it's not a taxi conversion