A road trip in an old car.

[volvoguy87]

Quite a few weeks ago, someone mentioned that they wanted me to post pics of a road trip I just took from Ohio to Virginia in my Volvo. I went back to my alma mater for my 10 year reunion. Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA.

Here are some pics.
Dave

 

[philr]

Nice Volvo! Was this one made in Canada? Some of those sold here were made in Nova Scotia.

 

[volvoguy87]

Nope.

Mine is Swedish, built in June of 1987.
Dave

 

[davey7]

I miss having a Volvo, especially after spending a weekend in a college town with all the 240's and 245's running around.

 

[fido]

I briefly had a Volvo estate similar to that. I bought it dirt cheap as a temporary replacement for my van which needed major repairs. It turned out the head gasket had gone on the Volvo so I ended up just fixing it and selling it on. They are very simple mechanically and easy to work on. I bought it from someone who lived in Gordon Castle and had an aristocratic accent but the car was filthy as they had kept it mainly for transporting dogs.

 

[petek]

I had an 82 GL and it was one of the best cars I've ever owned (11 yrs). The clincher that sold me on it back then because it was somewhat pricey was when the salesman had me stop on some railroad tracks and do a donut. The car just spun around, so tight, great for city driving. Better yet was how it handled on the hairpin curves going up the coast to Whistler. Not many cars could negotiate them like a boxy Volvo. The only thing it wasn't that good at was driving in snow oddly but that could have been my tires. Never had any real mechanical problems with it. After a few hundred thousand miles I sold it to my niece and they drove it for about a year up in Edmonton, then cross country transfer to New Brunswick for a year or so, then transferred back again to Alberta. They eventually sold it with regrets. In all those years the upholstery still looked factory new.. I don't know what kind of material it was but boy did it last.

 

[davey7]

In Sweden...

BMW's are seen as the bad cars on snow. Of course, in the far north, everybody has studded tires as the roads don't get fully plowed or salted.

 

[washer111]

BMW in the Snow

I wouldn't doubt that for a minute!

 

Rear-Wheel Drive cars (particularly big sixes) do have the tendency to "step-out" in corners, especially when fitted with unrefined suspension. They supposedly tamed the car quite well back in the E36 series, but perhaps not so much in severe conditions. 

 

[gizmo]

There are still lots of these on the road here in Australia. I'm not sure of the dates but for a while the later 240s were assembled here by Nissan. I used to drive past the Nissan factory at Clayton on my way to university.

They are real old soldiers, they just keep marching on.

 

[washer111]

Those old Volvo's are wonderful vehicles. Aside from the crumbling-wires issues they suffer from in their age today, they are quite literally TANKS. T-Bone resistant, not from "crumble zones" and fancy composite materials, but from raw steel. 

These cars are like the SQ machines of today. Built like tanks, and probably drive like them too (Sorry - Snobby comment from the owner of a German automobile). 

 

I saw a fair few meandering round while in Norway during the winter. All mostly rust-free. 

Close family-friend has one - gets thrashed all the time, and still going after all these years! (Norwegian drivers are fun to ride with, to say the least. Its amazing that car hasn't fallen apart). 

 

Whilst the miles are piling on, they are solid cars, and you can get them for pennies (almost) here in Australia. Very sparsely equipped (Oops, there I go again), but have held together well, especially when Aussie models from that time have all but disappeared completely, from rust and mechanical issues. 

 

[davey7]

They don't salt in Norway either (or at least didn't in the 80's) - studded tires are the norm, hence the lack of rust. A lot of people in Oslo parked their cars away for the winter, especially in the inner city. I think the Nordics are stricter about car condition (and more compulsive than Anglo-Saxon peoples with maintenance in general) in addition to less salt. You can see I parked on the same side of a one way street from the rust on the drivers side of my car - we love our salt in Chicago.

 

[volvoguy87]

Handling.

I've had a lot of suspension work done on my Volvo in order to restore its handling from a badly worn state back to factory specification. I've got to say, I'm impressed. Yes it's underpowered as all heck, no I wouldn't want to drive it at high speed through a slalom, but the handling is quite good and it's pleasant to drive under nearly all circumstances. It will hold its own on a curve, however, much to the astonishment of passengers who don't expect an old car to have decent handling. I can drive 500 miles or just around town and not feel tired or sore. It's comfortable and stable at high speed.

It is equipped with the rare limited slip differential and has never stranded me in bad weather. That being said, it has scared the heck out of me and left me white as a sheet. When the driving wheels (rear wheel drive with a live axle) break traction, they break traction on both sides at the same time. The resulting loss of lateral control and stability in the rear can make for some nasty fishtails. These days, I leave it parked when it snows.

It's a tank, but in a good way.
Dave

 

[washer111]

Studded Tires

My Cousin refers to them as "Pigs," from what I could tell. 

In Bergen, there is an additional tax on cars with those fitted - apparently because of some pollution that results from the studs that hurts asthmatics or something like that. Seems pedantic, but whatever. 

 

[dustin92]

Not many of them running around up here, probably most have rusted away. Still looks to be in decent shape and low miles for the age though! I drive a 2003 Chevy Impala with over 180,000 miles (already!), has had it's share of repairs to prove it, and it too is starting to rust at only 11 years old I love it anyway though!

 

[norgeway]

Last road trip in an old car!

I drove my 62 Plymouth Fury to St Louis for the VCCC convention in 1996, 750 miles , absolutely no trouble, that 62 with posi traction was the absolute best car in snow I ever owned, much better than any of the front wheel drive cars..and unlike any of todays cars, the power steering and power brakes worked!Old Chrysler products have the most alive responsive steering of any thing ever built.

 

[gizmo]

These Volvos (100 series and 200 series) were actually amongst the first cars to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">have</span> crumple zones. I remember going to the Melbourne motor show in about 72 or 73 and got brochures of the 145 wagon. The wiper on the back window was about the cleverest thing I had ever seen. I chewed my parents ears about how safe these cars were but they stuck with the 69 Ford Falcon XT wagon. (they had it till well into the 1980s, by which time it had covered over 500,000 miles but was completely clapped out.) I was about 10 at the time so I wasn't their main source of car buying advice! Another feature from that 1970s brochure that still sticks in my mind was that the Volvo 144/145 had hot air from the heater ducted through the front pillar and doors to help slow down rust formation.

 

Later, when I was at university, I earned a little cash by driving cars through a used car auction one night a week, and detailing the cars on the weekend. The auctioneer used to joke about some models when they came through, and the type of buyer that would go for that car. When a Volvo drove up to the auction square, he used to smirk and say " a Volvo. Have we got any school teachers here tonight?..."

 

[washer111]

Well!

I stand corrected. Thanks for clearing that up. 

 

[davey7]

I live in a university neighborhood so there are a fair amount of Volvo's around (not as many as Urbana though). Funnily enough, first time I drove a Volvo (and, now that I think of it, I've ONLY driven 245's with four speeds+overdrive) it was my cousin in Boston's, who is a professor. Then I drove one around in northern Sweden owned by friends and then my own (which did get me stuck in parking spaces ever so often, but that's every car in Chicago late in winter)- both of which were beige. First time one of my friends got in mine he was like "Dave, this is a TANK!"...

I've heard about the pollutants from studded tires, Bergen is fairly snow free (for Norway anyways). Did they call them "gris"? Driving in Northern Scandinavia is winter is scary at first - the packed snow creates what's called "snörök" or snow-smoke which is like the dust thrown up from dirt roads. People would actually pass on two lane roads with no visibility (thank god for mandatory daytime running lights).

In Sweden Volvo's are called traktors or socialtraktors and Saab's moderattrakors since Volvo's are seen as being driven by Social Democrats and Saabs by Moderates (aka conservative party supporters, called Moderates in Sweden). It's a bit different in Norway since there is no native auto industry (other than the Drammen Dodge in the 20's, the Troll in the 50's and the one electric car which I can't remember the name of) and they aren't in the EU. In the 80's there were lots of Opel Rekords and Ford Taunus' (better known here as the Cortina as seen on Keeping Up Appearances backfiring in Mrs. Buckets driveway) - I think there may have been some Ford assembly two, the word for vehicle is "fordon" in some Nordic languages.