November

VOLVO BUILD OF THE MONTH

For the month of November we are featuring Nick Belmonte’s 1998 Volvo S70 T5

Nick writes,

“I could go on about this car forever, but I’ll try to keep this short and to the point. My passion for Volvos started when my father bought me my first car, an automatic NA 97 850 for $300 and I loved it. The more I looked into the Volvos the more I wanted a manual t5. I ended up finding a 98 s70 t5 for sale from a used car dealership, it was lowered on coilovers on a set of volans and I was obsessed with it. I had no idea how many miles were on it though, because the odometer read 800k. Wasn’t the smartest purchase but I wanted it so bad. It was far from my house, raining, and it had the baldest tires I have ever seen so the owner of the dealership said he would tow it for me. He ended up ignoring me for weeks and I almost got screwed. Luckily I was able to get the keys and everything turned out fine but it was a hassle. I have now owned this car for about 3 years and it could probably fool you into thinking it’s a different car and I am extremely proud of it. It’s now sitting on a custom air suspension kit that I made up, a set of avant garde wheels with 5×120 adapters, has been plastidipped metallic purple with a homemade “boser” hood, subaru front lip, homemade sideskirts, diffuser, and I have rn swapped the engine from a 2001 c70. The engine has an NA manifold and throttle body, 960 throttle plate, japanifold, custom fmic kit, custom fresh air intake, forge 007 splitter valve, 3″ catless downpipe to 2.5″ straight pipe and I’m still running a 16t but I upgraded to an angle flanged exhaust housing. There’s is also tons of little stuff I’m not including to keep this shorter. I have A LOT more planned for this car. I have done all of the work to this car and have learned everything I know from building it, thanks to my dad. I think it is an extremely unique car and it’s one of the things I am the most proud of. This is not your average Volvo, I built it to my style and to show what I love about cars and I plan to continue to create my own path for this car regardless of what others think.”

– Nick Belmonte