BUYING GUIDE
With its mixture of 1960s style, solid build and rugged mechanical components, the Volvo Amazon – or 120 series to give its proper name – makes a very practical classic which is eminently capable of being pressed into daily service. That doesn’t mean it won’t need suitable care and attention. After all, the design first saw the light of day in the 1950s and rugged though it may be, it’s still a 1950s car underneath.
Launched in 1956 as the Volvo 120 Series, the Amazon tag was used only in Sweden after motorbike maker Kriedler objected to Volvo’s original name of Amason as they had registered it themselves. Elsewhere the car kicked off the threedigit naming convention used by Volvo until the late 1990s. That doesn’t stop most people referring to the range in general as the Volvo Amazon, though.
The 121 was a single-carb base model, the 122S of 1958 a dual-carb performance version. 1958 was also the year that UK imports began. The 1.6-litre B16A engine was derived from the one that had been used in the Amazon’s Volvo PV544 predecessor and the car was initially offered as just a four-door saloon. A bigger B18A
