A friend of mine had a 144, and that thing was such a strangely cool thing to drive lol.
It had no power, the steering wheel felt about 3 feet wide, and the clutch pedal felt like it had a 2 foot travel, and with my long legs, I had to lift my knee up around my ears to get my foot on the clutch lol. But on the dirt roads where we worked (he didn't have a licence, and my car's fuel pump gave up, so I drove the "ovlov" to work for a few weeks), it was a hoot! counter-steering with that gigantic wheel took a little getting used to lol, but it was so easy to slide around, and we used to have everyone in stitches when we'd come around a corner full sideways in the mustard coloured swedish tank lol.
Volvos here have a bad rap for being driven by old people who don't know what they're doing, so I bought an old man tweed flat cap, and my mate put sheep skin seat covers on the car, and a picnic rug on the parcel shelf lol. In heavy trafic you just put your indicator on to change lanes, and everyone gets out of your way lol.
The thing was so reliable, it was bulletproof. My friend said he figured that if sweden was ever invaded, they'd just cut holes in the roofs of their volvos and mount guns to them, and they'd have the largest fleet of tanks in the world lol.
