6
MODELS (264·265·262C·760·780·960)
The very first PRV ever fitted under a bonnet went into a Volvo 264, in October 1974. From the 260 series to the 760 and the 780, Volvo's saloons and coupés carried the V6 until 1997 — five years after the divorce from Renault.
The pioneering series, and the first car in the world to receive the PRV: a 264, in October 1974. The carburetted B27A gave 125 bhp, then K-Jetronic injection led to the 155 bhp B28E of the 264 and 265. The United States had their own versions, with lowered compression for local fuel and emissions rules: B27F at 140 bhp, then B28F at 130 bhp. The 262C coupé, bodied in Italy, took the B28A with its SU-HIF6 carburettor (126 bhp).
The 1980s flagship succeeded the 260 and spans both ages of fuel injection: mechanical K-Jetronic first, like the 260, then the B280 with LH-Jetronic electronic injection — 156 bhp, the highest output the PRV ever reached at Volvo. It is the car the 960 replaced in 1990, taking its V6 along to Japan and Australia.
The range's coupé, powered by the same 156 bhp B280 — and the most Italian of all Volvos: designed by Marc Deschamps and built by Bertone in Turin, like the 262C coupé before it. Volvo's official total is 8,518 cars between 1986 and 1991, all engines together: the rarest of the PRV Volvos.
The last Volvo to carry the PRV, and few people know it. When the 960 replaced the 760 in 1990, most markets got Volvo's new all-aluminium straight-six. Japan and Australia did not: their first 960s kept the B280 V6 — Japanese type approval names the engine in the car's own code, E-9B280: 2,848 cc, 145 bhp, from September 1990.
Stretched 70 cm and bodied by Bertone, the 264 TE became the official car of East German leadership — Erich Honecker rode in its back seat. The full story is in Pop culture.
The genesis of the 264's engine: “Why the PRV V6 opens at 90°, not 60”
Where Douvrin engines wear Z-codes, Volvo used its own nomenclature. All eight variants — from the B27A to the B280 F — are detailed in the B-codes file.
Despite the divorce from Renault pronounced in 1992, the PRV soldiered on in Volvo's saloons until 1997 — the closing chapter of the story told in History.
B27, B28, B280 : all eight variants, code by code.