IPD: Making VOLVOS COOLER FOR 60 YEARS
STORY | CHRIS CRAMER
PHOTOGRAPHY | JUSTIN JONES
If you’ve ever seen an older Volvo in traffic, chances are it had IPD parts in it. The company is that prevalent in the Volvo culture in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. They are, and remain, the go-to company for replacement, maintenance, suspension and go-fast bits for Volvos of all ages.
HISTORY
Founded in 1963 by Richard Gordon and Garry Small as Import Parts & Service (IPS), the company morphed in 1965 into Import Parts Distributors (IPD). Beginning with a drag racing 544 sedan and an auto crossing 122S wagon, by 1969 IPD’s co-owner Gordon was racing in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Small was also having success road racing a fuel-injected Volvo P1800 from 1967-1969, and enthusiasts were asking where Gordon and Small were getting their anti-roll bars, headers, springs, and other go-fast parts. Around this time IPD liquidated all non-Volvo parts so the company could focus on Volvo.
In the late 1960s there was no serious factory-supported or even independent Volvo racing effort in the U.S., so Gordon and Small developed products the old fashioned way by using their own Volvo race cars for performance and endurance testing at track events. What worked—and what broke—became the mantra as IPD developed a complete line of parts and accessories for both improved street performance and all out racing
The first IPD catalog came out in 1968 and was filled with Polaroid snapshots and text straight off of a typewriter. According to IPD, the stock Volvo drivetrain and suspension was so strong that generally no reinforcing or special materials were necessary, making a Volvo one of the least expensive cars to prepare for racing. Instead IPD focused on making more power and getting the power to the ground better.
The 1971 Volvo 142E that helped put IPD on the map. Photo credit: Matt Adair / Dobson Stuttgart
In 1972, one of IPD’s customers was selling a lightly used 142E, and both Gordon and Small were coming around to the opinion that the company’s future could not be hung on the aging 544 and 122 models. They were fun, reliable, and solid, but they were Volvo’s past, not the future. The 142E had fuel injection, a more modern platform, and a completely new style. IPD made the choice to buy the 142E and immediately began making improvements.
The catalog and the company’s reputation spread, and caught the attention of Road & Track, where IPD was mentioned as a source for Volvo go-fast parts in a June 1973 edition. Around this time the original partnership between Gordon and Small was dissolved, and Gordon became the sole owner of IPD.
After IPD was mentioned in Road & Track, Gordon was determined to get his 142E a feature in the magazine, driving the car from Portland to the Road & Track offices in California and demanding a feature until just that happened. The 1971 Volvo 142E was eventually showcased in the June 1974 edition of Road & Track. The car was not only a test bed for developing model-specific performance and cosmetic upgrade, it was also a national billboard showing a whole crosscut of automotive enthusiasts that IPD existed and that Volvos were a solid platform for performance modifications. The 142E featured in Road & Track remains one of the most recognizable and famous Volvos in the US and remained with Gordon until 1999. More recently, the car was sold several times on Bring a Trailer, setting a new record at every sale for the most expensive 142 sold on the platform. This is validation for the desirability of IPD’s in-house modifications and also the company’s reverence in the Volvo community.
PRESENT & FUTURE
Fast forward more than a few years from IPD’s beginnings in a 3,000 sq. ft. warehouse, the company has grown to a modern facility divided into a showroom, offices, parts warehouse and a fabrication area that occupies 19,000 square feet and is located five minutes from the Portland airport.
Since 1983, IPD has participated in the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show and has created a number of award-winning custom Volvos, including a turbocharged 262 Bertone called the Blizzard and a 1998 Stage III V70 T5.
According to IPD’s president Chris Delano, IPD was so well known in the aftermarket world that when Ford acquired Volvo in 1999, they provided a generous budget to build concept vehicles to be shown at SEMA. Thus, a 300-horsepower V70 XC All Terrain with on-the-fly, adjustable ride height was built as well as a supercharged/ turbocharged gull-wing door C30. Volvo was so impressed with the V70 XC All Terrain that the car now resides in the Volvo factory museum in Gothenburg, Sweden.
When Volvo came out with the P2 platform in 1998, including the 2004-2007 V70R and S60R, Delano stated IPD saw their first lag time with these cars between developing products for the platform and the eventual demand for aftermarket performance. It only took about five years for the demand to finally arrive for custom wheels, brakes, turbos, accessories, and maintenance parts. IPD learned that it was not necessarily the first owners that were building, rebuilding, and repairing these venerable R cars, but subsequent owners looking to maintain, and upgrade, the cars as well. According to Delano, the V70R pulled in a whole new subset of Volvo owners from makers like Subaru and BMW, who wanted a wagon for their newly expanding families and were also familiar with an AWD turbo platform.
Delano notes that the IPD test mule Flash Green V70R has been taken apart and put back together so many times developing parts for the platform that wing nuts have been installed on certain parts to ease the process.
IPD did with the P2 chassis, and now with the P3 chassis, what it had done with earlier Volvo models, which is to learn where the maintenance and failure points were on the specific platform, and find, or manufacture, parts to fix the flaws in Volvo’s initial designs. IPD noted which interior parts or plastics fail, which maintenance parts wear out and why, and what is out there for the fix. If IPD cannot find suitable replacement parts for identified common issues, they will create a replacement part or engineered workaround.
Today IPD’s website covers everything from vintage 1960s 122s and 140s to the XC60 and XC90 models sitting on dealer lots. Suspension upgrades, ECU tunes, replacement maintenance parts, interior and exterior cosmetics, and trick IPD engineered fixes for those common problem areas of older designs can all be found within IPD’s four walls. Lowering springs for that 242 project car—check—silicon boost hose kit because those on your XC60 are failing and you never want to replace them again—check—an inhouse designed 4T4 turbocharger kit for your 2007 V70R because getting the family out of town in a boosted hurry on a Friday afternoon is a priority— check. You get the idea.
IPD’s website allows a customer to custom build an online parts catalog for their specific vehicle and features Genuine, OE, OEM, and IPD-branded replacement parts. The website also contains decades of tech-tips and installation instructions, videos, doit-yourself guides and community forums. Where possible, IPD offers a tiered system of parts in three categories of good, better, and best alternative for the maintenance or replacement part. When you call IPD, or order online, know that most IPD employees started out as customers, and most have built cars identified or featured on the website.
If you ever find yourself in the Pacific Northwest in May, be sure not to miss the IPD Garage Sale. Arguably the largest gathering of Volvos on the West Coast, if not the U.S., IPD takes over more than a few surrounding parking lots, offers discounted prices on a number of parts, and opens its doors to invite the public into its facilities to see the mecca of all things Volvo. IPD development cars, employee cars, and notable customer cars are on prominent display. Nearby parking is filled with Volvos from the 1950s to modern Gothenburg iron. There is a swap meet section, games, raffle drawings, and even IPD Plinko.
This year marks the 60th Anniversary of IPD, and the 40th Anniversary of the IPD Garage Sale. When asked to identify IPD’s most-popular product, Delano stated their sway bars and lowering springs for the Volvo 240 series remains the top seller. With over 2.8 million 240s produced, a full 30 years after Volvo ceased production on the 240 series, an untold number of 240s roaming the earth are equipped with IPD sway bars or springs. Whatever the issue is with your vintage or modern Volvo—IPD is there to keep you rolling.
