Dear Volvo Enthusiasts - Very Welcome!
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Welcome to ClassicVolvo.com, a web site for Classic Volvo enthusiasts all around the world. My name is Hans Rekestad and I run this web site since 1996. I am based in Sweden, the birthplace of Volvo. I trade in (cars/parts), service and repair Volvo cars in the range 1947 - 1993. I welcome also, of course, all Volvos, younger or older, to this site! Click below for a more extensive presentation of me, my site and what I have to offer. |
| VERY long page below. Here are some of the highlights: "GrandPa meets Assar Gabrielsson and buys a Volvo" "Classicvolvo.com versus Ford Motor Company" "Touring Europe with a Duett 445 in 1973" |
| Please also search my site with Google. There are many old nonlinked pages! |
| You will find this possibility at the bottom of every page. Use it for interactive reading! |
2008 August 28: I am back
The site has been down for a while due to that my dear old web host has gone into bankruptcy. But now I am here again! Will spend some time checking out the site to see that it all works ok. Will get the e-mail working soon!
2008 April 19: Cars, parts and Halda Trip Master for sale
New items under "For Sale". I break a 121 with only 160 000 km's on the clock. It is a carefully used car with most parts in very good condition except for the body. The car has spent its last 18 years sitting under the trees behind an old mans house only interrupted by the occasional hauling of fire wood. The body is completely gone with rust (see pictures on Swedish index 2008-04-07 ) to an extent that I have hardly ever seen! I also sell a Halda Trip Master and also a couple of other cars that has been sitting around for too long. Since focus is on the Swedes there is not that much English info but please contact me if you have any interest in the items! I can deliver high resolution pictures on parts of interest.
2008 April 10: Focus on the Swedes
This web site has, almost from the beginning, been focused on the English language and on English speaking visitors. The Swedish opening page has hardly ever been upgraded at all. This will now change and focus will be put on writing in Swedish. Hopefully English speaking visitors will still come around. All parts and cars under "For Sale" will, of course be advertised in both languages.
2008 February 26: Writers Block
Aaghhh! I have been hit by writers block. Maybe it is because I was untrue to the Classics by test driving that new V70 in November...?! Luckily my workshop has not been hit (writers block AND workshop block together could be lethal) and the energy has been flowng there. Will tell you more!
2007 November 22: Doug Morris' roof rack
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Doug Morris in the USA has a brand new roof rack for a 220 that he wants to trade for a rack to a 145. I very rarely see thiese racks in this condition anymore so I decided to give it some promotion! See more pictures here and here and here . They make your juices go, don't they? If you want to but parts from me, click here! |
2007 November 07: Giving up my ancient status!
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So, finally it did happen! Yesterday I said goodbye to my ancient behavior of not ever having driven a front wheel driven Volvo. I took a 200 km's tour in an almost brand new Volvo V70 Classic (what else...?!) and it felt fantastic! Like a pilot in some kind of low flying aircraft I whizzed down the highway. There were a lot of buttons and gadgets that I could not figure out while driving but handling, power and smoothness were, of course, extraordinary. It was a great experience! |
2007 October 21: Congratulations to my Finish Brother Kimi
Great congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen , "The Iceman", and the Ferrari Team for winning the 2007 Formula One Grand Prix Championship today at the last race of the season at the Inter Lagos Brazilian race course! Sweden and Finland was one country for several hundred years up until 1809 so today I am very much Finish (especially since we Swedes never have produced a world champ in Formula One). Congratulations, Kimi!
Congratulations also to Swede Mattias Ekström for winning the German saloon car championship, DTM, last weekend. Great Nordic victories!
2007 October 17: NEW online web shop for spare parts
CVI Automotive, my spare parts partner, has opened a new, fresh web shop. At the moment they cover the four "oldies"; 444/544, 120/220, P1800 and 140 but more modern Volvos are coming up soon! Go there and shop, night or day! The adress is www.cvi-automotive.se
2007 October 8: The Volvo hardships
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Volvo, my dear old car manufacturer has problems, the statistics are pointing down. The brand that has been in the family since the start (click HERE for grandfather's dealings with Volvo founder) is loosing business and might be sold to almost anyone in the near future. Right now, due to very low US $, Volvo Corp. loose money on several models that are shipped to and sold in the USA. And the mother company, Ford Motor Company, shall "clean up" (grow up...?) and will probably sell off Volvo Automotive to the best bidder. Russian and Chinese business tycoons have been seen in the media rumble as well as Swedish industrial investors. Will be VERY interesting to see how all this will end up. A higher dollar and better sales would light up the scene but this scenario seems not to be in the near future. THIS is the way it should look! |
2007 August 01: Volvo 121 & 122 smorgasbord
Click HERE and get linked to a page with 93 different Swedish Amazons for sale!
2007 June 13: Many Volvo P1800:s for sale in Sweden
Summer has hit Sweden and so has the P1800-Bonanza. I ran a search for P1800 on one of Swedens largest sites for sell and buy and came across the following list of potentially nice cars. I have just red the ads and know nothing more about the vehicles but some are for sure worth looking closer into if you want a P1800.
As I said I am just forwarding these links, nothing more. When the car is sold the link dies so get to it!
| Volvo P1800 | - |
| Volvo P1800 | |||
| Volvo P1800 | |||
| Volvo p1800es 1973 |
Most Swedes speak English. Prices in Swedish currency. Click on "Mejla Annonsören" in the ad and a form comes up where you can contact the seller.
Good luck!
2007 May 22: Rescue mission for a Volvo 164E
Todd Raymond, in Santa Monica, C. A. USA, drove into a truck with his very nice Volvo 164E. Todd is not going to repair and he can not keep it any longer so in two weeks it is going to be pulverized at the auto junk yard. A shame if that happens. Contact Todd, especially if you are a 164-owner. Maybe some things can be saved. e-mail Todd at t.ray@mac.com
Click HERE for more info!
2007 February 8: Happy Birthday Volvo PV 444
Today, 60 years ago, in 1947, were the very first models of Volvo PV 444 released to the market. It was the first "small" automobile produced by the Volvo factory and it was going change the whole concept for Volvo as a car manufacturer. Volvo had been producing large (by European standards), sturdy automobiles since 1927 (my grandfather bought one!) and with the 444-model they opened up to a new segment of buyers. It was post-world war two times, the economy was boosting and it was time for each family to get its own car. This meant an increase in production volumes that, in the continuation, made Volvo to the success story it is today. The follower of the 444, the 544 (basically identical in many aspects) was my first, true encounter with the automotive world and deep down in my heart it is still number one. Maybe the wagon model, the 445 and 210 can put up a bit of competition.
Having seen
these cars going from everyday family cars, to cheepo-to-find-everywhere-cars, to rare collectors items of today it often strikes me how old these models actually are and how relatively hard it is to get hold of the basic reparation info. Considering this I must take the opportunity to boost a link to the Swedish Volvo PV Club. In this club you can still find people with Volvo 444 & 544 integrated into their spine and belly! It is definitely well worth to visit their web site if you are looking for info.
Happy birthday, once again, dear 444 & 544!
2007 January 10: I did it! I bought a Ford!
It has happened! I have bought a Ford Escort 1998! I actually DID by another car than a Volvo! And I am fairly satisfied! And, also much more important, my wife Eva, is happy. But let me tell the story from the beginning.
My wife Eva has, since long ago, wanted a smaller and more modern car than what can be found in my glorious fleet of Amazons, 240's, 740's and 940's so I have been studying the market for these new front wheel models that, for me, don't feel really like "volvo". I looked at the S40 and the V40. Nice cars, undoubtedly, but while reading adverts I also glanced at other brands of automobiles and my eyes came across an advert for a "Ford Escort 1998, one owner". Everything sounded ok in the phone and when inspecting the little Ford in real life everything proved out to be extraordinary good. The car was sold by an old lady that was giving up driving. She had only used it for driving to her summer house in the summer. She never drove in the winter, then the car was parked in the garage. Total mileage over all the years was 36 000 km's (22500 miles). The car had been serviced with the authorized Ford dealer at the specified intervals and the service book had been stamped each time. All the documents from the entire ownership was saved, even the sales brochure from the day of purchase at the Ford dealer was there. The car was recently safety inspected and the tax was paid just two weeks earlier. The tires (both a summer and a winter set) were very good. I could not find anything at all to complain about on the inside and very few, minor spots on the outside. The little Escort is in many aspects like new. The old lady had even put newspapers on the floor to protect the rubber mats! On top of all this the seller was in a hurry and cut the price down with over 30% AND my wife fell in love with it directly (her relationship with Volvos is a little confused...). A fast calculation showed that a S40 in the same condition would cost three times as much. So there was no going back. I bought the car, even though it was not a Volvo.
Driving the Ford is ok but there is a feeling of "thinness", a feeling that I must be careful and handle it with care otherwise it will brake. It feels like it shall be driven like a little old lady but if done so, it will last very long. And my wife is happy, which is very important. This means that I can drive my fleet of "real" cars in peace. This purchase also gave me an increasing taste to try the V and S-models. I will definitely shop around for a nice one to tempt my wife with in order to bring here back on the right track...!
My relationship with Ford has not always been this harmonious. Read more about it HERE.
2006 December 13: 20 kilo car radio for sale.
My storage space is jammed with used, mostly, spare parts to such an extent that it hinders the work on the shop floor. Therefore I will start clearing stock. Today you have the chance to buy 20 kilos of car stereos. Check the "For Sale" page and make an offer.
2006 November 29: The Links page updated!
After a very long time of no action, the links page has now been updated with a lot of resellers. What I am really missing and what I really would like to link to, around the world, are workshops specialized on classic Volvos. I get a lot of requests for these. There are definitely mechanics out there that know old Volvos. I just have to find them. One problem is that these guys, often at older age, usually do not have web sites.
If you know of a good classic Volvo workshop, please mail me and I will put it on my links page even if it just can be contacted via telephone.
2006 November 15: The Classic Volvo Lappland tour
The autumn/pre-winter darkness lies hard on Sweden these days. A good time for some bright summer memories!
Three months ago I did a tour of southern Lappland. Lappland is the biggest and the most northern county of Sweden. When looking at the globe it is almost incomprehensible to understand that people at all can live up here, let alone that they can drive Volvo cars. The top of Sweden is on the same altitude as Baffin Island, northern Canada or the center of Greenland (Stockholm is on the same altitude as Hebron, Newfoundland, CA). It is only due to the Gulf stream that life, and Volvo autos, can exist up here. The population of Sweden is not big, is is roughly half of the complete New York Metropolitan Area in the USA and in the upper half of the country there is only around half a million people. And they are decreasing rapidly!
The ratio of Volvo drivers is probably the highest in the world, though, mainly due to the fact that Volvos are made in Sweden, extremely easy to maintain (pre 90's especially) and a very long lived automobile. In the small villages of Lappland you can still find your self in a meeting with the first owner/driver of an excellent (almost no rust up here!) 1972 145 Volvo Estate. Unfortunately I was out of camera battery when this happened...!
Modern front-wheel Volvos are of course the most common but the rate of 140 and 240's is astonishing. The chance of catching a classic in very good condition is very good IF you have a lot of time and is willing to drive long distances. Driving 100 km's (60 miles) is nothing! If you have a petrol station within 30 km's (20 miles) from your home you shall be very, very happy. From Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) it is almost 900 miles to the top of Sweden.
But do not let that stop you. Go to Lappland to find your classic Volvo. The people up there need you visiting them!
Click HERE for summer tour pictures!
2006 November 1: An Anglo-European phenomenon
ClassicVolvo.com is a true Anglo-European phenomenon. A look at my Google Analytics' page shows almost all visitors from north America and Europe. Click here for bigger picture.
2006 October 25: Family Amazon for sale
Erik Östman sells his fathers 1970 Amazon. Check in the forum.
2006 October 20:
2006 October 17: Spambots - ClassicVolvo.com: 1 - 1
The forum is up again! I had to move it to another hoster since the MySQL database did not work at my dear Netherweb.com (Shape up, guys!). With the help of my son, Alexander (Thanx a million, Alex!) the forum is now on line. You have to register AND you must confirm your registration via your e-mail. Beat that, you spambot! The mailing process takes a couple of minutes so please be patient. This makes it a bit more difficult to post but hopefully it will cut out all the Viagra/porno-shit. Unless it is posted by real live humans, of course. I had to delete over 300 registered porno users and a few "real" users also went down the drain so please register again if you can not log in.
2006 September 6: Spambots - ClassicVolvo.com: 1 - 0
Unfortunately I have to close the forum for a while. I know that I have told you to "Please ignore all the spam and just post anyhow!" but lately things have gone over the top. The obscene filth has poured in by the hour and I just could not keep it up anymore. The situation was that amongst lots of posts for porno movies, erection drivers, nude galleries and Viagra there was the little odd post on Volvo hubcaps or something similar volvoish. The Volvo spirit just drowned in the Internet slime. Sad!
But the match continues! Hopefully we will be back on track within the month.
2006 August 31: My two darlings
I have two darlings (except my wife!): "Red Dutch" and "Miss Faulty". They are two 1979 Volvo 245´s, both dark red. They are my workshop cars and I use them for all the daily use with the business. They are straight, old fashioned autos; carburetors and points. No modern digital stuff. Very down to earth and very reliable. And very cheap to keep and drive. "Red Dutch" (mileage: 270 000 km's) has stayed with me for almost ten tears. It originally came from Holland. A Dutch dealer came in it when picking up an Amazon for export. The second one, "Miss Faulty" (mileage: 370 000 km's, named after the license plate) came last year. It was the same year and the same color so I could not resist buying it. So now there are two beauties in the yard.
Driving them is a special task compared to more modern autos. It is like making a little tour back in to the past. There is a lot of feeling involved in the driving and in the general handling. Another good thing is that when I enter an auto of today, it is like getting on a space rocket or something similar. Modern cars are so fast, so comfortable and so equipped! The only problem is that it is so easy to get caught for speeding. That problem does not exist with my two beauties.
Click HERE for picture.
2006 May 07: www.volvomuseum.com
The Dutchman Ernst H L Kasteleijn has collected Volvos's for years and has even set up a small museum + a site with the above domain. He has now been told to hand over the domain by AB Volvo. Follow the discussion around this in the forum under "Tell us about your classic Volvo" .
What do you think of the situation? Post your thoughts!
2006 May 06: E-mail wave coming in
Dear visitors! Thank you for all the e-mail you are sending me. It is nice to note that you visit my site and read some of what I am writing.
BUT unfortunately I do not have the chance to answer you all. Please post your letters/questions/requests in the forum. I always try to answer forum posts before e-mail requests, mainly out of the selfish reason that the forum boosts more traffic to the site then e-mail does. And I anyhow have to spend time in the forum to stop all the spam that comes in there.
So, Dear Visitors, PLEASE post your questions in the forum.
Spring, with early summer temperatures, has arrived here in the Stockholm area. Great.
Take care out there!
2006 March 18: http://video.google.com/ ...!
Found this site today. The Internet never stops to surprise me. Great fun!
Found this video of some unknown guys test driving a turbo Amazon on the highway. The passenger screams of fear when the car hits +220 kms (140 mph).
CLICK HERE for videopage.
Click here for Google videos.
2006 March 17: The new forum started
Once again, God knows for what time in the history of ClassicVolvo.com, I start up a forum. The last forum got hacked and the most grisly picture was put up. When I tried to save a lot of nice posted info I got Hacktool Rootkit in my pc. Bad! This time you have to register to post AND I will make backup, often. So very welcome to sell and buy cars and parts, share information and tell your classic volvo story in our forum. Registration is just to prevent spam robots to post. You can use any user id + password you want. And register a new id the next time if you feel like it.
You reach some 3000 unique visitors per month and it is completely free. Very welcome!
Click here for the new forum.
2006, March 1: Still Beta 1.0.0
This is a beta-release. Very little work properly on this site. Plese go to the old index starting page if you want it all functionaly. Otherwise stay with us for more openers! We will also reuse a lot of the old site.
Thankyou for your patience.
We will try to reward you.
Please also help me with hints and tips about what you think and feel. Love to you all.
2006, March 1: Beta 1.0.0 Launch time!
Me and my designer (my son Alexander) have been waiting since July for this moment. We are, by far, not ready with everything but we do not want to wait longer so we put up this new "beta" index page. You can still find the old index at www.classicvolvo.com/indexx.htm It will be up for a while. I look a good deal younger back then...
Feels great to be on the move again! Hello everyone out there!
Also great to work directly on the Internet. It makes it easier to create.
2006, January: Building a new web site
ClassicVolvo.com has been asleep for quite some time. The site has not been upgraded for years almost. The old forum was hacked and a terrible picture was put up. I had to close the forum (no serious back up was made...!) and it has now been gone for many months. Also the workshop and the spare parts stock is completely dormant. In the workshop there is a nice P120 Amazon 1962 that is under restoration. It has been on axle stands since the last eighteen months. Beside it is a beautiful P1800 ES 1973 that has been on sale since June last year. The spare parts stock is in a kind of chaos. There are zillions of used parts everywhere and I can not find what I need. And nothing happens... Click here for pictures of the present stage. ClassicVolvo.com is like The Sleeping Beauty, waiting for the prince to come and start things up. This new web design/web strategy might be it!
In October 2006 I have been ten years on the Internet
and I must confess that the Internet part of my Volvo wheeling and dealing has been, and is, very interesting. To deal with people all over the globe (the classic Volvo enthusiasts are spread in a thin layer around the world) is fascinating. In fact, nowadays it is much more fascinating then welding rust or changing cylinder head gaskets which has turned a bit of a boar after 42 years. It IS great to work in the workshop as a compliment to sitting by the keyboard. It gives both head and hands some good exercise but I seem to be to old for producing hard core automobile repairs. The keyboard, with its access to millions of Internet users is more fascinating and less dirty, smelly and noisy. I will aim for a combination of both shop and board.
Pictures at http://www.classicvolvo.com/photogalleri/2006_02_09/index.htm
2002 - 2005:
I was back on the old track, out of focus of the media. Sad! Even if it was badly paid hours it had been very nice to be famous for a while. The only financial reward I did get out of all my hours at the keyboard was a fully paid trip to Las Vegas where I delivered a speech on "domain name rights" at an Internet conference. It had been great to use my favorite tool, the world wide web, to exercise my rights and needs. Even a one man company can win with the help of the web.
By the end of the FoMoCo struggle my US web host completely failed in many ways and the site was down for two months. Finally I managed to get out of their grip and has since then hosted with www.netherweb.com. Activities in the workshop declined and activities by the keyboard increased. I started to work more with web design and Internet strategy for clients even outside of the automotive branch.
2000 - 2001: Ford Motor Company vs. ClassicVolvo.com
Ford Motor Company hits me with a law suit for cyber piracy. It is the beginning of a battle on the Internet over the domain www.classicvolvo.com. Ford Motor Company accuses me of "trademark infringement" and want US $ 100.000 plus my domain. I gives me a lot of keyboard work, front page cover on Wall Street Journal and contact with a very skilled lawyer, Eric Grim at the www.eff.org. In the end I, kind of, win and get to keep my domain.
In brief, what happened was as follows:
In May 2000 I received a fat, 20 page, Fed-Ex letter, from a law firm in Michigan, in my post office box. To start it was hard for me to understand what it was all about but after a while it looked like somebody accused me of trademark infringement and cyber piracy and that this somebody was Ford Motor Company, the owner of Volvo. I got very surprised and also very upset since I never have done anything than excellent promotion for Volvo all along on this web site. The days went by, I got into contact, via the web, with a lot of other site holders that also had been contacted by FoMoCo in the same manner. It looked like that the law firm had done a major sweep and were aiming to sue over 100 domain holders. I was pissed off by being bundled together with domains such as www.fuckfordfast.com, www.ihateford.com and decided for counter measures. I sat down and wrote the first page in what was going to be a rather long story. Nothing did happen at first but in October a journalist at the swedish Nine O´clock television news came across my writings when looking for parts for his Volvo Duett 210. He got upset by the obvious injustice, fascinated by a story with a lot of web ingredients (very hot in year 2000) and came out with a photographer and made a six minute long film that was released on prime time news time. Everything exploded! Statistics skyrocketed 10-fold. My telephone almost melted down into a little pool of plastic. I was hot stuff. Journalists from all over wanted to come. Wall Street Journal came and spent most of the day with me and my company and I made the front page in the European and Asian edition (page 7, I think, in the US). ABC News announced a visit but they cancelled when they understood that I was on the other side of the Atlantic. I made the entire news bill for a couple of papers the day after the news entrance and people came up to me when I walked the street. My case was written or talked about in many, many newspapers, magazines, TV- and radio programs both in Europe and in the USA. And all the time everything was in favor of me!
In all this commotion, I got in contact with Eric Grimm
at the www.eff.org. Eric did think that this case was so interesting so he took it on even if the financial outcome would be zero. Thank you again, Eric! Eric took my case through a more than year long expedition until he finally got a judge to decide that the acting of Ford Motor Company was wrong. The judge also ruled out every possibility of getting paid for damages so Eric got nothing, neither did FoMoCo.
Most of the web pages I did write to me defense against Ford Motor Company are still online. Read them here. The billboards do not work anymore which is sad. There were a lot of angry people that posted on them. Even without the billboards I think you can get a good picture of what did happen.
ClasscVolvo.com vs Ford Motor Company, closing page: http://classicvolvo.com/ford/index.html
Starting page:
http://classicvolvo.com/ford/round1.htm
History speeded up:
1999: I had "dot.com"-dreams and aimed to set up the very Classic Volvo Center in Stockholm. I should be a center for classic Volvo enthusiasts that should offer everything; car sales, spare parts department and large work shop facilities. I calculated for a turnover that would employ 8-10 people. I was looking for funds in a "dot.com"-fashion. I did, among other things, put my domain out for sale, partly, in order to raise capital or get a serious partner to the proposed center. I was not lucky. Selling such old fashioned stuff as cars and car parts was not hot enough for dot.com ers.
Maybe it will be - I still have these ideas around a Classic Volvo Center...
1998: The dot com bubble started to grow and so did my sales world wide. Due to the Internet I had the tool to market my self over the whole wide world. I could change my message at any time just by prtessing my keyboard. It was fascinating but also complicated. Getting paid was a big problem. Bankers fees were huge and made small deliveries impossible. I had to turn down a lot of US-clients due to shipping costs.
I did still a lot of repairs on the shop floor.
1996: I discovered the internet and published the first web site. I had a feeling that this could be something big. Made the web site in Netscape composer. Had a digital camera that had 0,1 megapixel or so. It did build pictures in blocks!
E-mail started to become more and more important.
I did set up my present workshop, located next door to my house and sold off/canceled all other premesis. Nice! Now I had everything close, no rents to pay and everything in sight, even if it was a bit cramped due to small spaces. I even gave up my "grave yard" and hauled twenty classic volvo bodies to the scap yard. Sob... The situation when I did not have a lot of cars to check for needed parts gave me a bit of cold turkey but my wife was happy.
1994: I did extend the business with a small shop for spare parts. A dream came trough - my very own little shop with my very own little counter! I was the boss and the (only) shop assistant. At this moment in time I had my stock of cars and parts in four different places. A real little Volvo empire!
I gave out a little catalog and did spend a lot of time in the telephone.
1992: Did set up workshop in Järna, 50 km's south of Stockholm, Sweden. Did sell and buy cars on export and inland, repair cars and sell spare parts via mail order. I did a lot of rust welding, a lot of brakes and a lot of ordinary maintenance. Spent a lot of time in the workshop and in the packing area for parts packing. And on export trips to Holland.
1980ies: Exporting the Swedish heritage
The European tours came to an end and life continued. Focus was, for a while, more on buying a house, setting up a family and raising children, then on Volvo automobiles. But Volvos was all along the backbone of transportation. They were always available in any chosen price level. At times I used them more as “material” then automobiles. At on stage I was building on my house and had to pick up sand for the concrete mix so I just picked out the worst Duett 210 in the stock, drove to the sand pit, opened the back doors and just loaded the sand into the car. When the spring blades seemed to have had enough I closed the doors, took the load home and dug out the sand. After a couple of trips like this the Duett was worn out and went to the "grave yard" behind the workshop. Another one took its place.
This was one side of using and living with classic volvos. Today I use the 240 model in more or less the same way. But there was also the other end of the scale where I found and handled cars of extraordinary quality in a scenario that probably will not repeat.
Late 70ties, the 1980ties and the early 1990ties was high times of classic volvo export. The world, especially the Dutch and the Germans, had awaken to the beauty and the feeling of the classic volvos. This fact made me come into contact with a new breed of Swedes. Sweden was full of first owner cars with low mileage and a very attractive market surfaced. There were a lot of old Volvo owners that had treated their cars very carefully, almost like another human being, like another family member. A car was bought to be kept for many, many years. It was a serious investment and, if it was a Volvo, it also had a long lasting charisma quote. The old Volvos, especially from the middle and later 1960:ies were also built to last indefinitely.
Once I did visit an old widow that was forced to sell, due to her husbands death (she did not drive), her Volvo Duett 210. They had bought the car new and it had been a very cherished piece of property during all their twenty five years of ownership. The car was in 105% original condition, had a personal name, a perfect record of service and absolutely ALL documents. It had been driven very little and had always been kept inside in the garage when not used. During cold winter days the engine was covered with a blanket (this is inside the garage!) and when the summer heat came on there was a special ventilation window on top of the little building so the Volvo would not get too hot in the garage. I did ask why they could not use the garage doors to ventilate with and got the answer that it was too risky because then cats and birds could enter into the garage and damage the car. The widow waved and cried when I drove away. Maybe a tiny tear also came out of my eye...
Buying cars from this kind of clientele was, many times, like dealing with another kind of culture, a culture from the past with values different to our present. This culture also bought a car with the intention to keep it for good. Often I had to promise that the old family member was going to have a good, "new" life with an owner that would take care of it at least as well as it had been taken care of during its first xx-years. I did not always spell out that this next owner was an American or a Dutch enthusiast. This fact might have had made the deal difficult, maybe mainly because of the danger in exposing the old family member to a new, unknown and maybe dangerous culture. Often I did deal with people that almost never had left their local area (low mileage!), never been to Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) and the thought of sending off a family member on a long, risky journey could be too hard to comprehend. Financial thinking did also exist, of course. Sometimes the Dutch would pay five to ten times my buying price but the feeling of putting the car in "safe" hands was often very important.
The "golden export years" came to an end and Sweden is nowadays severely drained of classic volvos unless you look at the collectors collections. The culture that did have a first owner Volvo as a family member has also died away and its heritage, the cars, is spread around the globe. Some see it as if I have scattered the Swedish heritage. I see it as I have spread the possibility to enjoy classic volvos, of the best kind, world wide. After all, we are globalists, are we not?
1972-73 Classic Volvo European Tour
My life with a close relationship to Volvos continued with a new ingredient. It was time to break away from the farm and exchange traveling on the gravel roads in the neighborhood with traveling on the roads of Europe. And nothing could be better to travel in then a Volvo 210 Duett 1961!
I found it on a parking lot and bought it quickly. The rear seals on the B16-engine had shrunk so the oil consumption was gross. When driving in the rain, the car put out a consistent track of glistering oil on the wet road. It looked nice but was lethal to both the environment (not talked much about then) and the wallet. I quickly put a more modern B18-engine in the bay and was ready for the first European tour. Me and a friend toured around the mainland of Europe. This was almost the first time ever I left Sweden so there was a lot to see. The tour lasted over the summer. Autumn came and I decided to finally finish my economics degree so I spent the winter with books, car repairs and a bit of rally.
The spring of 1973 came
and I had had enough of both studies, the car workshop and rally. A friend, Phil, called from Paris and asked me to come down. I had no station wagon in stock, not much money and very little time, so I went to Stockholm and bought the first cheap wagon I found. It was a very cheap, very rusty 1957 445 Duett. It worked fine except for two drawbacks. The gearbox made a bit of a noise and it had severe rust damages in the back. The rust had eaten away big parts of the rear end of the body so the dust, especially when driving on gravel roads, had free access into the car. Driving at high speed did fill the car with dust to the extent that I could hardly see out through the wind shield.
There was very little time so I quickly welded
some sheet metal on some vital points, put on a lot of tape and undercoating to solve the dust problem, put an extra gearbox (3-speed!), some tools and manuals in the boot and went to Paris.
The journey went fine. Petrol was cheap and so was motor oil which the car consumed a fair bit of. Paris was nice but after a few days we went to Geneva to visit relatives to my friend and from there we went to Yugoslavia to swim. Yugoslavia was a bit chilly so we decided to aim for Greece. The gearbox worked fine but, maybe, the noise coming from it had accelerated a bit. It is hard to tell when you are all the time in the car. In Split in Yugoslavia, some 6000 km's drive from Stockholm, Sweden the noise turned into a roar. At first I thought that something under the vehicle had collapsed and was sliding on the ground but a quick check up confirmed that the roar came from the gearbox.
We had picked up two hitch hikers so we were four plus a lot of luggage in the car. The load was heavy. My experience from tractors (=things can work for years with heavy noises) and from rallies (=one just continues to the goal what ever it takes) and the fact that there was no Volvo workshop in sight made my decision easy. We continued, with a bit of prayers, towards the Greek beaches!
The gearbox sounded desperate and the wear and tear in its inside gave of so much heat that the rubber mats beside my feet started to smell burnt. We tried to take a short cut by driving trough Albania, in those days a very closed communist enclave, but coming within 50 meters from the customs office the guards aimed at us with their AK 47's so we turned around without even asking for a visa. We had to drive around Albania in the Balkan mountains which did not make the gearbox sound better. Coming into Greece, we aimed for the island of Corfu in the north of the Greek archipelago. When coming close to the ferry that would take us to the island, the gearbox was on its last legs. It jammed when driving slow. The trick was to force it with driving on high revs, to be a bit dominant!
The hitch hikers left us and coming of the ferry we rapidly drove down to the first possible beach and parked, with big relief, the volvo in an olive groove. Phuuu...! We had made it!
Some days swimming and relaxing took place and after a while the mechanic in me started to wake up. With a small jack a gradually lifted the car, piling bricks and rocks under its wheels. After some days of "jacking" I got the tools and the manuals out and over a period of a couple of weeks I slowly replaced the gearbox. There was a lot of swimming, sitting by the camp fire, eating at the local restaurants, drinking beer and relaxing so everything went slow. Time was no object. When taking away the old gearbox, the ingoing axle just fell to the ground. Nothing held it to the box. Very little was left of the main, first ball bearing and inside the gearbox was mainly chaos. It was amazing it had brought us all the way to the olive groove! We traded the broken down box for fresh figs with the next door farmer and after some weeks we got back on the road.
I spent the entire summer in Greece and the car worked fine. I did meet an English girl, Judy from Manchester, and had a terrific summer sleeping out on the beaches and plodding around in early touristy Greece with the old Volvo. Terrific summer! Spent a lot of time on Creete.
In the autumn I sold the car to a group of travelers that where aiming to travel to France to work with picking grapes and due to Greek import regulations I had to follow them out, over the border. I liked the gang so I decided to hang on and go to France together with them.
We were now constantly, at least,
five people traveling. The car worked ok but consumed a lot of oil. We always picked up hitch hikers an at one stage, when we had picked up three beautiful Italian girls, the left rear main spring blade broke and the car "fell" down a bit. After a quick checkup, to make sure that nothing was leaning on the tire, we shifted as much as possible of the luggage forward and continued. After another 50 km's the right blade broke and the Duett turned into a real low rider in the back. We said goodbye to the hikers, did not pick up any new ones and arrived at the vinery in southern France in this fashion. The vinery had a small workshop and we clamped and welded the spring blades back in position. The tires where, by now, completely bald, with out any sign of thread. We easily solved this by sharpening up a thin-bladed knife and then just cut some nice patterns in the tire. Grape season finished and i October I traveled on, without the Volvo this time.
There has been a couple of other
trips in volvos over the years but none as adventurous as this one and never again in such a worn out car.
1970 - Hooked on speed!
In 1970 i finally reached the age when I was permitted to drive cars, legally. I had spent a lot of time with motorcycles since the age of twelve, doing everything from taking apart my first Villiers 98cc engine, a bit of wheeling and dealing in bikes and parts to participating in motocross and off road (enduro) competitions. More then a hundred motorcycles had passed trough my hands. A lot of Swedish Husqvarna motocross's, many English bikes (Triumph Bonneville, Norton Commandoand, BSA) and many moped's.
But in the autumn of 1970 the two-wheelers were definitely out. Automobile drivers licence times were here! I did send in my mother to pick up my fresh drivers licence as soon as it was possible and after lunch, the same very day, I went to town to buy a 1964 brown PV 544. I quickly turned the car into a fully equipped rally car and set out to practice on the roads in the area. The PV had a B18-engine with all the rally gear available. The gear ratio was set for 140 kms in top speed so the acceleration was superb, even with today's standards. I was definitely a great danger to all oncoming traffic on the districts gravel roads. It was only because of a good deal of luck and to the grace of God that no one was hurt, including my self. After a bit of practice on the roads I was ready to start competing in rallies. Driving a car at rally speed on a forest road is very exiting. Few things in life does match it. I was thrilled. Unfortunately I was a very violent driver (e.g. three times rolled over) and had to spend many hours in the workshop. During weekdays I repaired cars for others to make money and during nights and weekends I repaired my own rally-volvo. The first PV died in a close encounter with a telephone pole. I outfitted another and competed with it, more and more successfully, until I finally gave up on my rally career in 1972.
In the late 1990:s I had a short comeback in track racing with a Volvo 140. I did a couple of endurance races but due to the wishes of my wife and also due to the fact that car racing actually is a bit dangerous I did not continue.
I do not rule out that there will be another come back. The fascination for driving fast in a rally or race car is still very much existing in my mind.
The summer of 1964 - Entering the business
Twelve years old I entered the world of Volvo business. A neighbor had a PV 444 1951 with a lot of rust, no brakes and malfunctioning engine. I bought it for a very small sum and spent a lot of my summer holidays with taking it apart and selling it for scrap metal. It was a big adventure to take it apart. I threw the empty body on the dump when autumn came.
This was also the summer of my first personal encounter with driving a motor vehicle. My grandfather gave me and my brother a small motorcycle, a 1939 Rex with a 98cc Villiers engine. The ability to move at great speed without hardly using the body was absolutely mind breaking and the Rex was followed by many more motorcycles. This summer was also the summer when I did set up my very first workshop. It gave me great joy and pride to nail my tools on the wall and put my bolts and nuts in cans. This was the start of "building my own workshop"-career. I am know in my tenth, I think.
A year later I started to drive the family car, now a blue-grey 1964 PV 544, round the yard. The yard was not big but I managed to get into top gear anyhow. The clutch did smell of burned fiber.
August 1958 - The very start!
Almost six years old I traveled, together with my father, 500 kms to the west coast of Sweden to pick up the family's first car, a second hand Volvo PV 444 1947. It was a great event! The black PV was my fathers first, own automobile and it was a great improvment in standards on the farm where I grew up (60 kms west of Stockholm). Tractors (Bolinder Munktell, later BM Volvo) had been around from even before my birth but an automobile was a big change. I still today have a clear memory of riding home, in the back seat, with this first car. I also have clear pictures in my mind of how my father, maybe a year later, is exchanging the engine in the village workshop. The new B4B-engine looked so fresh in its green colour and I was so proud over my father. In my eyes it was he who supervised the whole project.
Volvos had been very present among my relatives all along from the very start of the Volvo company. My grandfather bought one of the very first 1927-models almost from the hands of Assar Gabrielsson, one of the founders of Volvo. Read more about it HERE!
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