Introducing #740Lars, my sleeper V8 wagon.

Over a year in the making: say hello to #740Lars, a 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo wagon.

This may be the single nuttiest car I'll ever own, and probably one of the biggest mistakes I've made (so far). Why nutty? Well, this 7-seat, Swedish-made grocery-getter has a 302 V8 motor from an '89 Ford Mustang, in a 5-speed manual transmission.

In a sense, this is the fox body Ford Mustang wagon that Ford has never made. Is it sacrilege? Well, if Ford can make a electric crossover and call it a Mustang Mach E, then I can make a 7-seater wagon and call it a Mustang Mach E(ight).

From the outside, you wouldn't even know that this car is any special -- if anything, it looks a little beaten up. It looks like it's lived a rough life under the sun, with faded clear coat all over (an issue that I will be addressing shortly). Start it up though, and the low-frequency rumble from the push rod American V8 is unmistakable.

With some modifications, it currently makes 270 horsepower and 298lb/ft of torque. That's a whopping increase of 108hp and 100lb/ft of torque over the original car. This unassuming wagon can pull 11's all day long. Yes, it is hilarious. Yes, it's also a little scary. But mostly hilarious.

The best part? Everything came with the car when I bought it last April. Which is over a year ago.

Now, onto the "mistake" part...

I bought this car for a really good price last year, and there was a good reason for it -- the motor was actually bad. Upon initial inspection, we couldn't find much wrong with it, but the problem later became apparent when the oil pump simply stopped working, which led to a catastrophic engine failure.

What came after was me spending half of summer looking for a replacement 302 motor, actually swapping it in, and dialing it in so that it'd be ready for the roads again.

On the bright side, as the 302 swap kit has already been installed, swapping motors wasn't much of an issue. However, this car was also plagued with electrical issues -- with turn signals and windows not being functional. This took almost a year to remedy. Which meant that I wasn't able to drive it until last month.

What do I want to do with it? Originally when I bought it last summer, I wanted to use it as a road trip car -- I figured it'd be fun to have the perfect sleeper-build V8 wagon to cruise around the pacific northwest with. Now though? It's perfect for me as a camera car for rollers, so that's what I am going to use it for.

In the next while, I'll be documenting the journey I've had so far with Lars. Am I going to keep it long term? Who knows. Last year, this purchase felt like a bad mistake. Now that it's actually working, I am coming around to it very quickly.

What a glorious mistake this is.