I decided to take the Volvo back home and put it in the garage while I figured out what to do with the flaky transmission. Unfortunately, on the way home from the shop, another malady has appeared to rear its ugly head: the engine appears to be running on three cylinders and not the full compliment of four. Nuts. Well, any further diagnosis and work is just going to have to wait until I return from Alaska…
Living the 80’s suburban dream! It’s raining, and I’m fighting electrical gremlins, but I decided to drive the Volvo for Friday night anyway. I’m slowly collecting a list of things I need to fix on the car as I drove the car on and off for the week, but nothing so major as to stop me from driving the car… yet.
During one of my daily lunchtime Craigslist browsing sessions, I came across this car, up for sale right here in my neighborhood. Intrigued, I sent the seller an email on Thursday morning and arranged to see the car on Friday afternoon after work. After work, I stopped by the bank and withdrew some cash just in case I decided that I wanted to buy it.
I arrived at the seller’s garage, an older gentleman by the name of Bob, and took a look at the car while he relayed the car’s history to me. Bob bought it off the original owner, a fellow in Arizona, who had owned the car for 36 years. The original owner bought the car and kept it in Arizona, and the car has some dealership add-ons such as these funky yellow plaid seat inserts as well as air conditioning (which while weak still works!). Car has no rust, though the left side of the car was hit early in the car’s life, so the original owner had the left side of the car repainted, and the repaint is showing its age now. Car has a 4-speed manual with an electric overdrive, though the overdrive doesn’t consistently stay on when switched on. There are a couple of little things here and there, but overall, it’s a really nice example of an early Volvo wagon.
Bob brought the car back to Michigan and parked it next to his beloved Volvo Bertone 262C. As you can probably tell, this guy loves his Volvos. He had always wanted a wagon, having bought sedans in the past, so when this car popped up, he grabbed it. Unfortunately, he’s getting older and it’s getting harder and harder for him to operate a clutch, hence the sale.
I had always liked the idea of owning an old Volvo wagon, having spent a lot of time carpooling to school in a friend’s Volvo 240 wagon, but was unsure about the wisdom of putting another car in the fleet so soon after getting rid of the Morgan. At the end of the day, I figured that the car was only 6 grand, and if I ever needed to get rid of the car, I could probably recoup the purchase price as long as I don’t ruin the car (though I admittedly have a tendency of doing that). So cash changed hands, and I took this car home on Friday night.
As a friend said, “congrats on the long term rental.” He’s exactly right, haha.