Thing with the keyboard is that I'd gotten through 80% of the post with normal apostrophes & stuff, and suddenly it went wonky.

Craig - that's okay - everyone has their tastes. I don't know how you can say it looks ricey, though - it's very much like an E30 M3 in its style. Ricey would have scoops and flares and wings and not be colour matched, or the lines wouldn't have matched the body in some gaudy-fashionable way. This is '80s Euro custom - quite a popular look in the day and one I really dug. The creases of the flares match the original body lines and the original details are still there, plus the arches remain the same shape. Besides, with the IRS there's not a whole lot of "in" you can get before you start running into stuff. 10mm more offset in my wheels and I'd be rubbing the trailing link against the inside of the rim.

Fair enough - but to get the look right (IIRC) you'd have to do the front arches as well. Maybe it's just the amount that they went out? Maybe if it was only an inch or so that would be better and my comment about ricey was in quotes - I was looking for the right word. My eye just perfers body lines that are more subtle than "in-your-face". You'd need an English wheel for that job for sure and getting it to look right would be a tone of work.

The front arches are done already on that red car - they're probably just so subtle compared to the rears that you don't notice. Based on information from the garaget page, I think they're only flared 60mm on either side in the rear - it's not much. 60mm sounds about right if you think that I've got 7.5" wheels in the stock fenders and those are only 10" wide. The fronts are probably only flared 35mm or so to fit the 9" wheels. I think it looks just right, personally. To me this car to my car is like an '80s Porsche 930 Turbo to a 911S, or a Renault R5 Turbo to a regular LeCar, or an E30 M3 to an E30 325is. They all work, but they have different impacts.

And I didn't catch the significance of the quotes around rice, sorry.

I less than three fender flares.

Right after I posted I noticed the weird reflection on the front quarter panel. I'm all over the 80's Group B thing - I was more commenting on the general theme of that particular car. Maybe it needs a different front end treatment with the airdam/bumper. Could be that the stance is troubling, I'd drop it about another 1.5 inches and ditch the wheels - they are terrible. Could use a NACA duct on the front for added air to cool the turbo - just something.

The clear wasn't *horrible* on that car when it was in cloudy b-ham. I actually like the color of that car as it is. Midnight blue and black are pretty much what I like on a 780 though and nothing else with either black/gray interior or blue/black interior.

Silent and stealthy has appeal to me right now, but being a heavy sound deadened 780 thing, it is already so many orders of magnitude quieter than a stripper police 240 or stripper 242DL that I guess even with a 4-banger it would still be ok for quiet.


It is a bummer E85 isn't more common there. That B23 on E85 with plenty of boost would make the 780 scoot very nicely I'd think, not that premium is bad either.


If I lived in calgary, I don't think I'd bother with any kind of N/A car whatsoever unless it was built to run optimally there. The elevation and dry air really takes the wind out of the sails of my already underpowered k-cam B23 car. At sea level ~10F is a lot different than 10F at 4K feet in the dry, which I knew on paper before, but in the real world it is nice to be able to ride a sideways slide out through 2nd gear, which I couldn't do there. That, and watercooled turbos make for really fast heat in the winter.

Knowing you, you'd need about 2 weeks to sort the mechanical nicely on it with what you have and just enjoy it. looks wise, I like it a lot as it is...right color, right wheels, not something you see every day...sounds good to me. It is the one 700 sedan (apart from Ian's black one) that I don't hate looks wise.

Was good to hear your comments on the elevation, James - it's always nice to feel the added power when we drop to sea level but sometimes I think it's not as noticable as the lack of power when you climb up here. It affects turbo cars a lot too, despite what everyone says about turbos being less sensitive to elevation - off boost response tends to suck much more, which might be why I've never gone out of my way to install a huge turbo before.

The clear is peeling pretty badly now, and it was already very milky when I picked it up. The hood/trunk have been painted (poorly) at one point too, and could use a cut & polish except it would be spoiled by the dent in the hood. Bodywork will be necessary at some point - there are dozens of little dings and scuffs that I'd like to clear up.

I like the colour too - it's almost identical to my 244, which had a purple haze to it, but was overall (I think) the same paint code as the 850. I like lots of colours, though - Chevy has a really cool blue available on their Equinox that I'd be interested in, though the effect I like so much is probably managed through layers of ultra-thin paint in three or more stages (as is the tendancy in modern autobuilding). Anyway, I most likely wouldn't change the colour of the 850 unless I did a complete restoration, at which point I'd have to think long and hard about it. It would 100% positively HAVE to be dark blue, though... the interior dictates it. White might look okay with the blue/black interior, but white is so BLAH on such a sweetly styled (relatively speaking) Volvo.

Regarding the wheels - I like 'em, but they're heavily '80s and ones LIKE them have been seen on too many chevy pickup trucks. They need to be smoothed out and the colour needs to be changed - it looks like they were blasted in an industrial pit and left like that. The stance would need to change, for sure. The back is right but the front would have to come down an inch or so. The body colour bumpers look good in red, but I'm not sure I'd do them in my blue. The air dam will change on my car, eventually, so that might alter my opinion somewhat. More polar fleece...

What is refreshing (and is probably why the wheels have been so roughly blasted, now that I think about it) is that in that era it was VERY common to monochrome everything - wheels, bumpers, trim, etc. I'm betting those wheels were red once upon a time.

mmm momochrome wheels...yeah...pass on that...unless you have a turbo coupe or R5 or something that came with that on the actual race car or passenger version and your desire was to achieve a perfect restoration. Otherwise, that doesn't do it for me, but you are a bit older, so that might be more your speed. I don't see it on a big pretty blue barge sized car like a 780, but you never know.

I can't imagine driving a mercedes turbodiesel in calgary. A friend in HS had an '87 300TD with the 603 crossflow alloy head I6 that had a nice 3" exhaust added ages ago. That helped the lag a lot, but it also made it go really rather nastily in boost. With a 3", a little more boost and a little goofing with the ALDA was it became fairly stupid. However, the automagic combined with the fact that it still was very conservative on the fuel on start off made for a stark contrast between no boost and boost,

In the real world the feeling was like smoothly gliding along a glass pond in ghastly funereal silence (up to about 15-20mph). Then, all at once, the beast would wake up, trans would lock into the right gear and the turbo would howl and everything would go from glass pond to getting hit in the back by a dump truck or driving it sideways. Freeway manners at 70-120mph were very nice and most everything was glass pond with good hill climbing ability. In Calgary (or higher up and dryer), I'd expect that on-off feeling to be even worse. In boost, you could probably crank the boost even higher in the cold air. Out of boost, merging could be a real challenge.

By similar token, your 780 thing is a big, quiet (for a volvo), heavy barge of a car. A manual gearbox and that higher compression B23 could make for a reasonably quick car that is still fairly refined. I knew the trunk was repainted. The hood I didn't know about, but I believe it. I just remember it needing a lot of interior TLC and mold evacuation, but the quarters, roof and rest of the car being pretty straight and rust free. My long term thought for that car would be something along the lines of minty clean comfy interior, working A/C and a T6...something you can blast by someone in with the A/C on and a child seat in...like Peter's 960 T6 with an italian body in a color I like.

Okay, what I wanted to ask was what those Ferrari wheels were off of? At first I thought the California, but those aren't the ones. I don't mind them, but they're certainly not my favourite. On the 780, anything with some dish will be a good idea, but I feel like more spokes will be needed. I'm liking the Kodiak wheel idea, or even some Super DTMs.

As for the flares, a lot of the pics I'm seeing on Turbobricks of flared late model cars are too smooth. You can tell something gets wider, but you're not sure where. I really do prefer the more obvious flare, like the cars you list Matt. E30 M3 for sure.


Oooh. The R5 Turbo!


DROOOOOOOL.

Good luck getting DTM's

I really like the Kodiak idea myself, albiet pricey but not as pricey as some volks or other ilk. at least you can go custom everything from square one.

Hey, where did my post go? I had posted a few more comments about this build idea around 7pm. Weird.

To recap...A special thanks to Greg for putting what I see as the problem in pictures for me. The widebody idea is well done on the R5 and IMHO done rather poorly in the E30 M3. Here's my rationale. First off the French are just a little more style conscious than the Germans, so it doesn't surprise me that they made that little Le Car look that good. The Germans got it all wrong by trying to emulate what was a race solution to a few track car issues for the street. For a race car form follows function, for a sleek street car function and form should be balanced.

In the post that went no where, I said what I didn't like about the wide body style on the 780 Matt posted and on the BMW is that the design lacks integration - it looks like it was stuck on the car. Look at how the line on the top seems to sag at a normal look angle. Sure it is straight if you look from the front and are level with it, but at all other angles it droops. The boys at Renault got it right with the R5. Have a look at the front fender, subtle curves with a re-located arch an the re rear grows out of the window line instead of the belt line. that is done right. Curves where there should be curves and tastefully executed.

Fast forward to the build in question. Given Volvo's only design tool during the 7XX period was a ruler - we are working with some challenges here for body mods that you can live with and make the car look like sex (isn't that what it's all about?).

So given the fact that I don't seem to know when to shut-up on this one - here's what I would do. First up, starting at the front, do something with the air dam area and leave the front bumpers black. Next I would widen the front by sectioning the arch and adding in metal and relocating the arch. The idea is to work with what the original designers gave you - not against it.

Next up at the rear, if it has to be wider then the way I would do it is to add about 1/2 of the extension that was added on the pictured car and make it flatish, they put too much taper in the panel and it spoils the line. then I'd add the extra width to the arch section again. For anyone doing this, that's how it is done, the arch is cut off, the sides are made and the arch is added back (unless your making the entire panel).

This would be a little more elegant and less obvious, and I think better looking as you're accentuating the original lines and trying to create and INTEGRATED look. And isn't integration what we are all looking for - let's all hold hands and sing a happy song .

What you perhaps don't remember on the 780 is that the line where the flares were added is already there. Yes, it's not as pronounced and it's just an accent line, but I disagree when you imply that the guy who did this didn't use the existing lines.

Show car:




Stock:






Granted, they're not *quite* as prominent as on the show car, but they're there. I think we're going to end up disagreeing on this particular topic, Craig, as styling is a highly subjective thing. The body is SO flat along the sides that the arches are already rather prominent and if you added material to the arches, it just would NOT look good in my opinion. I'd reverse that arguement on a 240, strangely.

Besides, notice how both front and rear bumpers end up buried in the arches, as do the lower air dam / rear bumper roll. You'd have to re-work all of these items to do it properly, as well there's a substantial curve under the mid-point of the fender, so the ends of the arch already end up pinched in and tapered off to the bottom. If you added material to flare the arches instead of the fenders, you'd end up with an even more lopsided arch. I don't like it.

Maybe part of what I like about (and probably all I would take from) that show car is the lack of side trim and the body colour, more aggressive side skirt. Also, now that I see this blue 780 with body colour bumpers, I think I might like it. I'd keep the chrome around the windows and above the bumpers, but the black-fading-to-blotchy-grey has to go one way or the other. Add a better air dam and it would look pretty fine.

Greg, the wheels are off eBay. They're replicas of wheels available for Ferrari 355-360-456 type cars. I'd need 3" spacers on each side to make the rear wheels fit. Not practical unless it was for show only. Kodiaks in 8/9 inch widths and appropriate offsets would be better and nicer to boot.





I like the gold RT (don't as much like the polished one), but I think I like the STX better with it's fewer spokes. Still, $2700 USD for a set of wheels is kind of pricey, but at least they're coming from Canada!

I didn't imply that the body lines were not followed, just that when they did it they gave it too much slope. Square it off a little so the bulge doesn't droop visually as much. Hey, it ain't my car - so do what you like. If it were me, I'd be off to the appliance store over the weekend to acquire a large cardboard box and try out a few of these ideas before going any further. We can all argue about what looks good - but you have to see it mocked up to really know.

If you're going to paint the bumpers and build an air dam, for the love of God, don't just paint what is there. Those bumpers could use a little smoothing to make the entire thing look better (we'll probably disagree on that as well ). The accordians and recessed part should go, they date the car instantly.

Those gold wheels are very nice - 18's? If I see a US Drift banner on the windshield, I'm going to rip it off.

Drift is a 4 letter word around me. US is another. I'd actually allow you to smash my $600 windshield if I put one of those banners on.

If you look closely (like I just did) you'll notice the blue car has no accordions - I wonder if '90+ bumpers will fit a 780? The front air dam of a '90+ 700 isn't to my taste, but something might be done about that. That may be why the chrome is missing from the blue car... Ian, have you still got those bumpers laying around? Anyway, I'd probably paint mine initially to fix the fading black/grey and to spruce it up some, but I'm not sure about filling the recess or losing the accordion. I've never done any plastic welding but I know it wouldn't be a simple operation to smooth that stuff out - probably simpler to build an integrated bumper/airdam out of fiberglass (or bolt on an 850 bumper cover)

And I know I've repeated this a bunch of times, but I don't plan on doing this mod, at least not in the forseeable future. LOADS of $$$ on the proper wheels for the job, loads of time and effort on the body & paint, when the actual paint on the bottom 3/4 of the car is still good. If it's just the hood, trunk, and roof that needs a respray, and a bunch of paintless dent repair done, I'm good with that. This show car is just a thought exercise for us.

Then again, I DO like those wheels a lot, and I could get them custom sized to allow everything to fit my car properly, as well as get a bit of a dish. Because they're a 3 piece bolted wheel, if all I need are different outer rings later to widen them, it wouldn't cost that much to do later on.

I am so going to start yelling "US Drift!" when I hurt myself from now on.