Del Chakravarti sent us photos of his 1964 Volvo Amazon 122S that he owned many years ago, he brought the car from the estate of the original owner. The date of first registration was November 1960, but he believes it left the factory in late 59. It was fitted with a B16 engine and given the Ruddspeed treatment. He also sent a photo of Ken Rudd standing next to the car. His father owned the ‘39 DXC’ Amazon that was also a Ruddspeed car.

He said he swapped the B16 for a tuned B20. The B16 had wear on the distributor driveshaft . Which he said completely threw out the timing, resulting in starting problems, erratic running and wouldn't rev beyond about 4500. At the time, no parts available to fix, he says just happened to have a B20 engine sitting around. The performance was better than his dad's old Ruddspeed. He also when I fitted a P1800 remote shift, as per his dad's car, added loads of sound deadening and had a stainless steel, under the axle, twin exhaust system made for it (based on an original Rudds twin exhaust). It had an M41 with remote shift, full instrumentation, sound-deadening, lowered progressives, Bilsteins, polys, all on 205/55-16's on wide steels.

We know it sat with Brian Gue at Amazonia for many years gathering dust (and moss), but we last saw it advertised on Facebook Market Place. The DVLA has it taxed until May 2024, so we know it is now back on the road which is good news.

Del posted a couple of videos of the car to YouTube back in 2009/10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2FKMI2hUAs

Ruddspeed Serial Number: 711

We would love to hear from anyone has more information on the car or would like to add to the history please feel free to contact us here at Ruddspeed.
Click on the images below to view at a larger size.