We never got these in the States, so I never saw one until I went to France in 1989-my first thought was "How cute! A baby Volvo!"

I owned a 1982 343 and a 1991 340 with LPG tank. The 1991 had a 5 speed transmission, which worked, but wasn't too well with the car. The 1982 one had the 4 speed manual gearbox, and this was a perfect match. A turning radius of less than 10 metres, superbly flexible interior with loads of space, very comfy seats and very decent economy made me love it. The easy maintainability was another factor I was thankful for as I did all of those jobs on my own. On snow or ice covered streets, there's no better car. Full Stop. When I had my 1982 one, I worked for a company the boss of which owned an Audi A8. The road to the office went slightly downhill and was in a remote spot where snow wasn't cleared. Where the Audi had to have its traction control turned off and struggled and screamed and roared with all four wheel slipping and spinning wildly to slowly creep uphill, the 343 drove up like it was a dry road. In ice rain, when all the ABS and ESP equipped cars had to hide in their garages, I went to play on spacious parking lots, drifting in eights around the lamp posts. Without any electronics, the 340 was superbly controllable in such manoevers. A brilliant, brilliant little car that I would _love_ to have again. F*** VW Golf, f*** Astras, f*** front wheel drive and electronic helpers. That wee bugger did it all right.

My first car - a 1983 Volvo 340 DL. Built like a tank. All joking aside this car saved my life back in the day. I was involved in a motorway pile up and the car behind me hit me at about 70mph and shunted me into another vehicle. I was totally fine whereas the other folks were being cut out their cars. Everyone was ok in the end and I received £1000 compo. Pretty cool when you’re 17 years old back in 1996. One day I’ll buy another 340.

I do have sweet memories about DAF. The DAF trucks when I was in the army in the mid seventies and my roadtrip to Toscany in a DAF 46. A visit to the DAF museum late 2019 brought back a lot of those memories. The museum is certainly worth a visit when lockdown ends.

The car I learned to drive in :) p.s. My dad worked at the Volvo plant in Born where they made these, (now NedCar) he drove a dark blue 345 for a few years before switching to a White 440.

My Mother got here Driver License in 1968. But she had Problems with manual shifting. Becaus of this my father bought a DAF 66. This Car was ahead of its time. A Hatchback with automatic gearbox, and enough space for the hole Family. Later one we got a second one. Beginning of the 1990's no dealer wanted this car (with only 60.000 km). So I tock it as a Winter Car. In Summer I had my 750 four Honda. The DAF was a simple, but reliable Car and the direct predecessor of the Volvo 340. Greatings from Germany.

Ah my first car in 1993 , 1985 340 gl 3dr blue , so much better than my mates fiestas ,metros and Uno's. Kept going back to them after Cavaliers and escorts rotted away and had another 2. Great to see them finally get some appreciation 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Very nice! Here in Holland the Police used them. The Dutch designer of the Volvo 480, which is even a Dutch (Volvo) car is still a live and explained in a video how he came up with the design.

A model that has always been close to my heart. We had a 1983 360 GLS 3dr when I was a kid (It's still sat here, returning to nature actually) and it was the first car I ever drove with my late father in the passenger seat... Fast forward about 5 years and my dad (as promised) bought me my first car. A 1985 340 GL 5dr. £80 and 3years older than me but I loved that comfy old boat. Everyone else having poverty spec Micras, fiestas and corsas and I had Electric windows, central locking, RWD, 5 gears (no vario here) and room for 4 with a large boot 😃

I remember seeing that TV advert with the test dummy driving the car through the window. One of my uncles had a 200, but I think everyone else had beemers or mercs.

Excellent, been waiting for this one! They had the nickname "Remjohan" ("Johan with a belt") in Sweden long after the variomatic was gone.

We got the 300 series around '86 or so here in Australia, they were not that common but people like them, kind of like an aspirational hatchback! I'm not sure what they cost, but it must've been considerably more than the Toyota, Ford, Nissan and Mitsubishi hatchbacks of the time.

I had a 1982 Y 360GLS in which I used to travel every weekend back and forth from Cardiff to London for nearly a year. It only cost me £520. It would cruise along at 80mph/3200rpm and did 30mpg. What a great car.

I'm not even past the advert and I already miss my 340 and 360.

My mother had one, for its second birthday it decided to trash the diff/transaxle. The repair cast was roughly a third of the new car price. Volvo refused to help, so after a protracted correspondence I threatened to set light to the car in Trafalgar Square in front of the press. At this point they changed their mind and paid for the parts, labour wasn't too bad and so on it trundled! Although not fast it handled quite well for the time and just meant you didn't slow down for bends. It was comfortable and well screwed together compared to British cars of the period. After 4 years it had no rust, better than the Ford she had before it.

Nice video, posted exactly to date 45 years after the press introduction of the 343 in Gothenburg on February 19th 1976! A coincidence? I think not.

Absolutely love it when new episode comes on this channel quality all day long

My Uncles 340 was rear ended by a mondeo years ago.. We got out and the 340s rear bumper had come off its clips. The mondeo driver, a guy, was in tears, his front end was smashed to all recognition, the bonnet was a nice V shape and coolant all over the place.. Great memories

Oh my days,,, my grandad tought me how to drive bk in 92, in his brown volvo 340,reg, BWL 693 V. I still have a photo of this car outside our house, on my phone now. Thank you for this video, as this car holds very dear memories for me. My grandad passed in 07.

Weird coincidence Today, I saw a 1986 Volvo 340 driving and this Video came out today

My Dad bought a DAF46 in 1976. It had an air-cooled twin cylinder engine of 800cc. It had a single CVT drive belt or "rubber band" as we used to call it. More powerful engines used 2 drive belts. It chewed up a lot of rubber bands and we got very good at replacing them over the 14years we kept the car! It also had a simple but effective centrifugal clutch, rather than a torque converter. It drove quite nicely at motorway speeds for an 800cc - I presume the CVT transmission gave it a wide gearing range.

Man.. That red 360GLT still does it for me, in a big way. Thanks for this episode. I do like me some Volvos.

I like that "Svensson&Hansson" special, The theme score should have been performed by Hansson&Karlsson, a swedish duo from the late 60´s that gained some fame and played with Hendrix a few times :)

Without doubt my 340 and 340 GL were the best cars I ever owned. They were extremely well built and solid as rocks. They had a great driving position, were incredibly comfortable, utterly reliable, and the GL came with every conceivable extra, including heated seats!. If I could have another I would, but they are rare creatures these days.

I had a 360 GLT as my first company car with Volvo Penta great memories I got stopped for speeding with 4 Kayaks on the roof !still driving a Volvo some 35 years later thanks putting theses great films together

Happy memories of my 360 GLT into which we stuffed the 2.3l redblock turbo out of a 740, with a bit of boost fetling it pushed out around 250bhp, nothing to write home about today, but in 1992, more than enough to leave the average 325i driver wondering what the heck had just happened as a volvo left them for dead..... :-)

Had a 360glt in 1989. How I wish I kept it

Your sounds at the end remind me to tell you to consider a Trabant story lol

In the Netherlands we used to have a one model racing class: Volvo 360 2.0L only! It was called the 360-NOT- Modena-cup. A cheeky reference to the desirable Ferrari of that time. The racing in that 360 cup was fierce and competative although some engines in some cars were not really 100% stock ... (hotter cams, tuned ecu's, tweeked ignition timing, tweeked fuel pressure, skimmed head for higher compression, etc)

I had a 1982 345 which I loved. Granted it was no sprint machine as the 1.4 engine was just about up to the job. It did have great road holding ability for all of its roll in hard cornering. I did on several occasions on twisty Yorkshire roads frustrate Audi and BMW drivers by being able to out corner them while they had to catch up to me again on the next short straight. Twice I had 3 Series BMWs follow me into a corner and not be there afterwards. The 345 finally lived up to its Volvo reputation when a driver coming towards me driving a Rover SD1 crossed over to my side of the road hitting me head on. I got out of the car "very pissed off" to put it mildly, but the other poor chap spent 17 days in Hospital. All I had for injuries was a sore collar bone from the seat belt, but walked away otherwise unhurt. Wish Volvo still made the 340 Series, at the time of write off crash my much used and loved 345 it had over 160,000 of hard use miles on it and was still running perfectly with no engine noises or oil smoke. Volvo using the Renault 1.4 engine in that car was a good idea as the engine proved to be a reliable and strong performing bit of kit. As I said earlier, the car was no sprint machine, but it moved along well enough and cruised well on the M1 from Leeds to London.

I remember my grandad having a 340. Whenever I'd go to visit, he'd always take me for a ride in it :) He had a white one, and I was meant to learn to drive with it, and get it once he passed away

Volvo 340 was my grandfather's last car he owned before he passed away. He always called it his DAF 77. Dafjes Achteruit was a yearly event with obstacles. All the old Daf cars got completely destroyed. At some stage they had run out of cars. The Dutch Comedian André van Duin was the Master of Ceremonies (MC)

Mr Big Car, thank you for enlightening us on this Dutch/Swedish car. Still have good memories about these Volvo's. Although back then i would not be seen in a Volvo 300 series. 😀

The DAF/Volvo 66 really was a real driver's car with excellent road holding. I once followed a Beemer on a curvy road and he was really trying to pull away from this senior citizen's vehicle but couldn't and gave up.

My late father had three of those, non with belt-drive. The dutch Volvo was of course the first car I ever drove.

My first ever volvo was the volvo 360 and it was incredibly well built and sturdy..felt like driving a tank..i have driven volvo cars ever since and have owned 240 and 740 saloons..Currently driving an S 40 1.6 petrol...superb cars.

Loved the side moving front seat backs to aid entry to the back seats- loved the 300.

I totally forgot this car. Thanks for bringing back some childhood memories.

My mum and dad had a 343DL the exact same colour as the one in the pic. They bought it from a garage, and it wasn't long before my dad discovered that it had been crash damaged, and the driver's side front wing was mostly made of filler and a lot of newspaper! One year, the windscreen heater stopped working, and I had to sit in the front passenger seat, scrape the ice and clear the windscreen INSIDE the car while my mum drove me to school! They also had a 244 the same colour, and that thing was a tank. My dad used to let me drive it on private land when I was a kid of about 13. Great times!

Thank you, that was the first family car I remember of. In hilly city, the belts wouldn't last two years. It was however very well built.

I owned a 340 GL as my first car .. From new in 1983 it was owned by my grand parents then I purchased it in 1998. I still remember it’s registration number OAE860Y from Lex Brooklands Bristol . Nice car to drive with brilliant steering lock & comfortable seats but by heck that 1.4 Renault engine was slow & thirsty . I still remember that engine sound you will never forget it ..

My dad had a C reg Volvo 340 that he bought brand new just before I was born. He kept it until 1998 when he replaced it with a Diesel Peugeot 106. It was bumpy, uncomfortable, and hot on a summers day - but I do remember him having a head on collision with another Volvo 340 on a country road. Both cars bounced off each other without even a graze. Dad and the other driver got out of their cars, looked in amazement at the lack of damage and then laughed with one of them saying “that’s why we bought Volvos!” They just drove off without needing to even exchange insurance.

Love this channel Top Work!!

Another excellent video. Thanks.

This is such an enjoyable channel! I love it!

Had not seen one in years and walked past a 360 yesterday and this video shows on my feed today, SO COOL

A 1987 360 is one of my dream cars i own. It surprises lots of People when they take a lock under the hood and see the 2.0Liter engine, because they Think there is a 1.3 or 1.5 in it. It also makes a lot of fun on motorways when cars like a golf 6 gti or a a3 s line dissappearing in the mirrors..... Lots of fun with this cool car

Thank you for giving attention to this car. My great uncle used to own a brown 340, which he called "my brown Ferrari". My best friend learned to the drive in a white 340 diesel, and I got to ride along a few times. He could "outdrag" our Audi 80 1.6 Diesel easily with that Volvo, as it took our Audi more than 20 seconds to get to 60 mph. We were always looking around to see the "unicorn" somewhere in our area, the "unicorn" being a 360 GLT. Never saw one ... still looking tough ;-)

That brought back memories. When my mum died, she left me enough money for a second hand car and I got a third hand 343. I remember the fuel economy (25 MPH if driven carefully, 18 MPG if not), the remarkable 0-30 times with the horrible 0-60 times and the crazy soft suspension that made cornering an exciting adventure.

My daily driver is a 1988 Volvo 360! Great video, and an interesting car that's been largely forgotten here in Sweden compared to the other classic Volvo models

as always, love the video. You're doing some amazing work and I hope you can continue to entertain us with such fun, down to earth videos for any years to come.

My parents has one back in the 80's. As a backseat passenger, I liked it. It's number plate was GAN..... So we called it Gan. We all loved Blake's 7.

It was the ultimate OAP car in the UK and always the source for country roads jams!

Speaking of Porsche, will we ever have a Porsche 911 story? Thanks for the great content.

Another great one, thanks!

Always liked this shape, very nice. Thanks for the video and once again, enlightening me!

Thank you!

One of my college friends had one back in the 80's. Was really nice, super soft seats, and heated too !. Which was really something for a mid 80's small car.

Brilliant trucks. Amazing innovation. Long lasting engines. Daffy design? I think not! The P900, a classic masterpiece. What a car. All terrain and reliable. The classic for me.

Our neighbours had one in 77 bright yellow. As it departed - our Rd was at the bottom of a hill - or arrived on the over run it sounded like a jet. My dad said it sounded as rough as a bear's a*se. It was a certainly distinctive sound as as noisy as a 240TD also in our Rd. I think they had a lot of problems with it!

Brilliant video as usual, very funny outtakes😂😂 keep up the excellent work 😊

Little fun fact, one of the reasons why so few early 343 survive today is because Volvo told dealers when these models were part exchanged to scrap/not resell them to the general public as they thought their poor quality was hurting Volvo's reputation

You are right on the spot! To all manufactures (hard and soft): Fix the problems before you introduce new problems via new features.

Been waiting ages for this, have one that I’m restoring, needs a lot of work but I can’t wait to get it on the road one day

My dad had one of these. Happy memories!

Finally a channel that is interesting throughout the whole video and dosen't make as long as possible just to make money.

I never thought i could learn so much about the cars i grew up with and knew pretty well. Total surprise that it didn't start as a Volvo originally. amazing video, thanks!

always love watching your videos, especially the long ones, keep it up please!

My dad had a 345 when I was a kid. Great car, it's the reason my first own car was a Volvo 740.

Great video on one of my old favourites 👍👍👍 In Denmark, these cars was quite expensive - much more than an Escort 😉

my Grandfather gave me his Volvo 66 GL (1976 on a 'P') when he decided to give up driving. I really loved that car & wished I still had it now even with the constant drone of the 1.3 engine. One thing you didn't mention was the huge bang when one of the transmission belts went! Still looking for one, just to bring back a few pleasant memories. All the best...............

Had a 340, 2.0 petrol version 25 years ago. Great driving experience - but very thirsty on the gasoline 🤔😉

I was a mechanic in a Daf main dealer at the time of the Volvo takeover so the garage became a sort of mini Volvo dealer for servicing and repairs. The storeman was delighted as he was authorised to sell some Daf spares at Volvo prices. Renault head gaskets retailing at about £4 suddenly went up to £8 and before long replacement stock arrived in Volvo wrappers and boxes. The garage did eventually acquire more Volvo customers, but not enough to keep the garage afloat and with the dwindling Daf customer base Closure was inevitable.

Great video!

a bit of info from a volvo nerd -The 2 litre engined cars quite often stripped the splines on the torque tube shaft ( they didn’t use a conventional drive shaft ) due to them being to weak to cope with the extra power also there were a lot of people destroying the CVT gearboxes by Revving them up in park. I love this channel keep up the good work big car 👍

I had a volvo 360 that i built into a drift car. Tuned the air/fuel mix with an allen key. Land rover front shocks in the rear and lovered the leaf springs. Amazing fun car to drive and suprisingly fast. Turbo and PRV v6 versions like the 363 even more so! I still dream about it...

Back when I was 20 , I’m 52 now l had a girlfriend that had one , I drove it from Melbourne to Merimbula and back one summer and it was a great little car . We broke up and l still pine for the car .

"prioritising fixing problems is better than adding more flashy features" *Elon Musk has left the server*

really enjoy those cars story's nice job mate

This was an especially excellent exposé. I've never driven a DAF with the vairomatic (I live in the U.S. so opportunities to do so are few and far between) but doing so is on my bucket list.

Ahh yes, one of the Dutch very few famous car brands! Thanks Big Car for this episode! I loved the 340 with the rear driven wheels, got mine as a gift only had to replace the air filter and it never let me down. Good times.

10:39 the "sport" version of the 343 had the VOLVO backwards on the front air dam, ostensibly so the winner could read it in his rear view mirror!

Great story! I didn't even know this car existed! Keep it up!

Great video as usual. My auntie had a ‘W’ reg (1980) 343 DL 3 door. I loved the high seating in back and the tipping & tilting front seats to get in & out. It seemed so much more modern than an Escort,

Thanks for this video that sheds light on DAF - so many cars today have CVT transmissions, and can trace their origins to the DAF Variomatic transmission.

For part of the 80s I worked on the spanners at a Volvo dealers. The 340/360 series proved popular. Apart from a rattle from the rear seat back catches which could be fixed on PDI they were generally fairly trouble free. The 1400 engine tended to develop a bit of piston slap at 20k plus. But having said that the engines would then seem to just run & run. The 360 was also a cracking car. Went like stink & handled like a dream. Formula Ferguson had a place near by & word on the street was that they used a 360 as a benchmark when it came to handling. The only real weakness with the 360 GLT was the lower ball joint on the front suspension which would often wear out at around 30k. The joint was fine on the 340s. There was talk of Volvo intending to up rate the joint. The dealership had a good relationship with Volvo’s training centre at Daventry. I occasionally popped down to carry out the odd job. One time the CVT trainer had needed to leave without giving notice. I went to show them how to change the belts & at the same time illustrate that dealers had correctly claimed the ‘book time’ was not long enough to carry out the work correctly. But to give Volvo their due they were very keen on mechanics training. At the time they used to run an annual ‘Top tech’ competition. It was very much based around time spent poring through the workshop manuals to answer mostly multi choice questions. The questions were first answered at a dealership level. This went on for months & the lowest scoring dealers would be illuminated as time went on. It then moved onto grading each tech from the best performing dealership. We had hour long lunch breaks at that time. A group of you sat round I the tea room could learn quite a lot in an hour. I liked Volvo’s knowledge ethos so why did I leave the dealership. They took on a Financial Controller who watched every penny. On my way home from work one Monday night someone pulled out of a side road in front of me. I walked away unscathed but my car had been rendered un-drivable. I asked if I may borrow a part-ex car to get to work for a few days while I found/purchased a replacement. The answer was no. A Peugeot dealer heard of my plight. They loaned me a car and offered me a job. I don’t think it will not come as a surprise to hear that I took up their offer.

Thanks for this episode. I currently own a Daf 66 and bought a 340 banger as engine donor to my Daf. You did some great research on our national brand Daf!

I had a 360 about 15 year ago. It was a wonderful car to own. Good reliability but if something broke it was fairly was to repair. My wife still misses that car even though we much more modern cars now. I was really happy to see you released an episode with this car!

Awesome. As usual. 👍

Wonderful! As an owner of a 1970 Daf 55 Coupe and a 1979 Volvo 264 I am very happy with this overview. Thanks!!

The first car I had use of my mums 1987 340 1.7 GL saloon in burgundy, no power steering and rear wheel drive, it was a handful but I loved it. I went on to buy an 86 C Polo coupe which felt like a go kart in comparison! Excellent video and always love the outtakes. Great work. 👍🏼

Jan Wilsgaard's best moment was the 850. I think we can all agree. Possibly the greatest car ever made.

My mum had a red W reg 343, then an F-reg 340GL which I inherited and ran until about 2003, just before they became popular as a drift car!

Thanks for this one!!! My grandparents had a black 360GLS 2 liter, with carburettor. I drove it myself when I just got my license, since my dad kept it after my grandparents had died. I loved that car... 5 speed gearbox, nippy engine, drove like a charm

My second car, a 1983 360, purchased in 1989 with 30k miles. My uncle owned a large company and got his engineers to strip the engine down, was impressed so he bought 20. Mine was great, one fairly serious crash, all repaired and I was fine, then the cambelt snapped - I’d never heard of them, cost me almost £1000 for the rebuild.

Lovely vid

Love the bloopers!

I think that the 1.7 litre wasn't a entlarged 1.4 but the engine from the Renault 9 /11GTX and the 21. This was an OHC engine with a belt driven camshaft. The 1.4 was the old Cleon OHV engine from the R 5, 9, 11, 18 etc.

Had one on rent in around 1980, drove it from Gothenburg to Malmo, very smooth but arrived late for my meeting with the Rent a Car District Manager. He glanced at the car and remarked 'Now I know why you are late.' .Brought mine in 1989, Volvo had pulled out the quality to get the price competitive with the Golf. Kept it for nine years as family hack, and sold it to a colleague for £300 as I thought the engine had developed expensive problems. Six years later same colleague remarked that his son was selling it that week, did I want it back!

Excellent video as usual - waiting for a Humbre Sceptre video