A Volvo-Powered Dragster Hits 8 Seconds

Traditionally, if you’re gonna build a rear-engined dragster, you need a big old American V8, right? Most modern builders and experts would say that you do. Unless you’re an inventive group of Norwegians, then you use a little four-cylinder from a Volvo. Who would’ve thought?

Now, you might think using a Volvo B20 engine–a single-cam, iron-block four-cylinder dated back to the as early as the 1960s for a dragster seems like a bad idea, but hang with us there’s actually some logic behind it.

Although Volvo’s B-series engines didn’t produce a ton of power they are pretty darn durable. Don’t believe us? You can ask the guy who put three million miles on a 1.8-liter version in a 1966 Volvo P1800. That’s the definition of durability.

Team Volvo Dragster has been racing for almost 10 years now, but it just started gaining traction thanks to an article from Road and Track. And there are no exact numbers that we know of that tells exactly how much power this dragster makes, but an older YouTube video claims that it makes around 750 horsepower. And we also know it can run an 8.35-second quarter-mile, which is absolutely crazy. And another awesome thing? It sounds pretty good while racing.



Hats off to you, Team Volvo Dragster. You’ve done a heck of a job on this one!