“It came to us when we were drunk”… What do you get when a couple of Swedes get bored and sink a bunch of beer on their weekends? Well, apparently the answer is a 400hp, two-stroke V8 Volvo Amazon. And, no doubt, a lot of annoyed neighbours!
Creators, Henrik Söderlund and Morgan Gerdin came up with a wacky plan to shoehorn the 1980’s era 3.6-litre Evinrude 300XP two-stroke marine V8 into the body of what loosely resembles a Volvo 120, also knowns as an Amazon.
“It came to us when we were drunk”, recalls Henrik. “I had the motor in my boat. It was in the garage for some service and tuning. I happened to park the boat with the engine hanging next to the Amazon, and a few beers later the picture cleared.”
“The original engine is 340hp on the crank, and that is without pipes. With the pipes, extensive porting and EFI, it should make more!” Henrik states, referencing the expansion chambers hanging off the top (or side, depending on which way you’re looking at it) from the V8.
“The power band is still unknown; we have only revved it to 5200rpm so far, the pipes are tuned to 6500 and the rev limit is set to 8500, so there is a lot more power to come when we get the tuning done!”.
Fitted with a customised Powerglide and a Volvo/Dana four-link rear end, and a pair of giant 33×10.5in drag slicks, the Swedish bred vehicle only retains 30kg of its original structure.
Weighing in at a meagre 683kg, 400hp is more than enough to get the Swedish born creation down the strip in no time.
Traditionally the marine V8 is mounted vertically on the back of a boat, but in the Volvo it has been mounted longitudinally and mated to the Powerglide transmission instead of a propellor.
While there have been no updates the past few years, you can follow the progress of this build on Rudezon’s Youtube channel here or Facebook here.
