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From Swedespeed.com Technical Features While performance upgrades are a big focus for many Volvo owners, many more have other priorities for their cars, and this is no different for our staff and Project 245. Hauling a certain German Shorthair Pointer around in the back is one of many purposes the 245 serves, and the dog's short wiry white hairs seemingly have a plan of their own to invade the interior of the stationwagon.
The second was an OEM part sold by Volvo as an accessory back when the 240 was still being sold. This second cage attached to the car via two receptacles mounted to the roof and two holders mounted to the back seat. As far as we can tell, this second one is out of production, so if you plan to source it, you'll have to find it used. It just so happened that we were lucky enough to find one quite affordably on Ebay. The seller had all parts needed for installation, an important plus as you won't be able to install it without them. We decided to purchase the second choice due to the OEM design and the bargain basement price we found. Ours arrived virtually trouble free. It has some rust spots in some locations and was very slightly damaged. However, you get what you pay for. We plan on cleaning the rust and possibly powder coating the partition at some point, but for now it installed into the car with no complications. There's a resonance in the car at 80 mph that makes the gate vibrate quite noisily, but it operates as it should and we're looking in to some sort of fix to stop the rattle. Otherwise, we're happy with the result. Trunk Liner For those not familiar with the German Shorthair Pointer, this breed of dog sheds a healthy amount of short white hairs that can easily found themselves lodged quite frustratingly deep in a car's carpeting. Removing all the hair from our car's contrastingly black carpet was an exercise in patience. Our friends at IPD also sell a Swedish made AutoForm cargo area liners (part #CS9M6245) made of a black plastic material. They are specifically designed for the 245's trunk and have a surrounding lip to keep water within the liner until it can be cleaned. The mat acts as a barrier for our purposes. Laying down some towels or a small pet bed for travel with the dog is enough to make him comfortable, and the majority of the hairs are kept from the carpet thanks to the layer of plastic in between. Better yet, cleaning is now quite simple as all we have to do is remove the mat and hose it down. German Shorthaired Pointer You can't mention pet-proofing a car without mentioning the pet. Our particular canine is a German Shorthaired Pointer, though we believe with some English Pointer mixed in and thus his orange hue. Owning a dog can be a wonderful experience, and we adopted ours (albeit not for this project series) from the Mid-Atlantic German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue, Inc.. If you happen to like a certain breed, the internet now provides access to breed specific rescue organizations. This makes it much easier to adopt a dog within the breed rather than going to breeders. While it is tougher to get younger puppies, adopting a dog in this way not only gets homeless dogs new homes, it is also considerably more affordable than buying a puppy from a breeder. Result We're quite pleased with the result of our two installations and it appears the dog is as well. Without being able to explore, he lies down and goes to sleep almost immediately while traveling. Cleanup is much easier as now, not only do we have to vacuum less, but there are also much fewer slobbery windows.
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