Stalled Project: 1968 Volvo 122S Station Wagon

There’s little in the automotive world that’s more forlorn than the project car that’s been put up for sale. Sometimes they’re being offered for pennies on the dollar, while other times the seller sits on the car for years trying to recoup their investment. On a few rare occasions, however, a project car presents a bargain because it’s not too far from the finish line, and this might be one of those cases. First-rate Barn Finder Curvette found this 1968 Volvo 122S Station Wagon (I’m using the American-market nomenclature) for sale here on craigslist in Yakima, Washington. It has fresh paint and a fresh interior, but it needs some assembly. Luckily, it looks like it has all the parts the new owner will need to reassemble the puzzle, and the price is a fairly reasonable $7,000.

The front end appears to be where all the action is going to be taking place, because it’s obviously missing a drivetrain.

But that’s OK, because there’s a B20 two-liter four-cylinder ready to be installed. It appears that 1968 was a transitional year in the Volvo world, but from everything I’ve read, the 1968 122S still used the B18 engine, so this may be an upgrade from a later model Volvo. The B20 also comes with what looks like an M41 four-speed with overdrive, and there’s a Painless Wiring kit, too. I don’t see any carburetors in the craigslist pictures, but American market cars had two SUs in 1968.

But who knows—the carburetors might be in there somewhere. There are certainly a bunch of other parts, including the grilles and front-of-engine ancillary components.

The upholstery has been replaced, and the dash pad seems to be missing the familiar cracks you’ll see in plenty of 122 dashboards. The 1968 model had a new impact-absorbing steering wheel (not the one shown here) and column, in addition to a dual-circuit braking system and power front disc brakes standard.

The craigslist ad doesn’t give us any information about the work that has been done or how much is left to do, but based on the pictures, it’s easy to piece together that all there is to do is piece the Amazon together; after all, things don’t look too bad from the rear, do they? Now, if you can just imagine the front in the same state of assembly, that could be enough to carry the project through to the end. A dedicated tinkerer could probably have this thing back on the road in a few weeks, and for the price of purchase, you could have a very nice 122S.