The complete restoration of a vehicle can be a long, arduous, frustrating, patience-straining process.  The magnificent, early 244 you see here was two years-plus in the making, but the story is actually much longer!  Eric originally contacted us about a 1979 245 in brown that we had for sale.  What he really wanted was a 125, an Amazon wagon, we just weren't quite ready to dive into the vintage pool yet.  After careful consideration, he contacted us about a sedan, but there were stipulations:  Manual trans, early style, "round eye" front end (single rounds), and the right color exterior.  Wagonmeister had stipulations too, and they resulted in some compromises.  Early cars are K-jet, mechanical injection.  For those in the know, doing their own maintenance, that's not such a terrible thing.  Sadly, finding K-jet savvy mechanics is becoming more difficult, especially so on the east coast, where even Volvos eventually succumb to the salt and the weather.  As the early cars disappear, so, too, are the mechanics familiar with K-jet.  Solution?  We built an '84 B23 engine for Eric with later, LH2.2 injection.  Took us many months to find the right car to start with, and in fact Eric found it.  This '77 sedan came from Sacramento and belonged to an educator there.  During the restoration we converted the car to manual transmission and rebuilt an M-46 gearbox to go behind the rebuilt engine.  Exhaustive project included completely refinishing the exterior of the car in an early, Volvo dark green from the 60s and 70s.  This sedan now resides in the Washington D.C. area and is a treasured, weekend driver and excursion car.  We have only a few pictures of the finished vehicle due to a data loss, but we think you'll agree, it's a gem in green.