I don't have much experience with the newer models of Volvo cars. My Dad only ever bought just one - a 1965 P1800s - off the showroom floor, and he still has that one, and it would run and drive fine if I could get it out of storage.

Maybe next week...

Dad's always raced cars and motorcycles, starting in the mid-1940's until the late 1980's. We signed up for the Foreign Stock class in 1975, and went around buying up al the PV544's we could find. We raced those cars all over southern California and Nevada until the class was closed out due to having too few cars. They're back at it again, I hear, but I haven't been out to watch them yet...

I was forced to retire from the USAF in 1994, and we moved home to southern California in 1999. I started looking for a 'toy' car, and found my '64 PV544 on eBay. I went up to San Francisco to pick it up, and after a LONG journey finally got it home. No problems on the road, unless you consider no working gauges and the old-style incandescent headlights. I could see about 30 feet with them on high beam!

Although the PO took good care of the car, she didn't know anythng about cars and at the end of her ownership was paying a Volvo shop $187 for an oil-and-filter change. I'd guess she just couldn't afford to drive it if it had to be repaired at a shop!

I've had a lot of time to fiddle with things, and this is where you can really begin to bond with a car. Cleaning, repairing, polishing, replacing, rewiring, etc etc. etc.

Right now, even without air conditioning or power steering or power brakes, I'd rather drive my Volvo than either of the other two NEW cars we have.

I get out and cruise about 50-55 MPH, not straining, no radio to keep me from hearing Hot Stuff sing his song. He has ~418,000 miles on him now, and it seems to me that he drives and rides as well or better than just about any other car I've ever owned.

Next week I'm going to load up my camping gear into the little trailer I built for my wheelchair and drive over to the coast for a few days. It's what? 250 miles or so? Just a nice day's drive, as I won't take any freeways.

Hot Stuff likes the Blue Highways, especially if they go through some twisty mountain roads!

There are so many owners out there with hundreds of thousands of miles on their Volvos...many of those cars dating from a time when an American car was ready for the scrap yard about the time it hit 100,00 miles.

A little loving care, and these cars will probably carry your grandchildren into the next century!