Vintage Newsletter - March 2012

2012 XXX Swedish Car Show

The Pacific Northwest has always been inundated with Volvo cars. Many regional Volvo enthusiast groups gather on weekends to show off their latest project or restoration. These types of gatherings and groups grow rapidly with the help of Volvo enthusiast internet forums. The internet and specific car forums help “spread the word” when it comes to creating a common gathering area for Volvo owners to converse and show off their ride.

Volvo car gatherings happen all over the world almost every weekend between friends and fellow enthusiasts. In the NW we have a few shows that are well worth attending. The XXX Swedish Car Show has proved to be one of them. Issaquah Washington’s XXX Root Beer Drive-In hosts many car shows throughout the summer. With over 100 cars that attend, you get to see every flavor of Volvo. Volvos that range from Vintage models to new cars right off the showroom floor. The 6th Annual XXX Swedish Car Show was truly remarkable to be a part of. We were amazed at all the Swedish Steel owners who rolled out their prize possessions during the winter month of February.

February 19, 2012 Sunday 10-3 PM “The 6th Annual Swedish Car Cruise-In” at the Historic XXX Root Beer Drive-In in Issaquah, WA. Hosted by the Puget Sound Volvo Sports America Car Club and Chapter Coordinator Gary Ramstad and Assistant Coordinator Gail Ritchie

We had 120 or more Volvos and Saabs for this 6th event, which would be equal to a major National West Coast Volvo Owner’s meet with the number of cars. The main parking lot is only for 109 cars and the XXX holds another 51 cars. Last year for the 5th event in 2011, we had 146 Volvos, and Saabs.

I thought this year’s past 6th Swedish Car Cruise-In was a great success only due the people that volunteered their time and effort working that cloudy, windy, cold 40 degree day.

Starting early in the morning at 8AM, Ingvar Carslon helped me use my 100 feet of caution yellow tape to secure areas for the Volvo and Saab car dealers showing two new Volvos and four new Saabs that day from Bob Byers Seattle Volvo and Saab of Seattle.

Ingvar and I, next saved parking spaces for an early 1800 classic Volvo exhibit in front of the XXX Root Beer drive-In for the past 35th anniversary of our VSA car club, 1976 to 2011, and the past 50th year of the 1800 Volvo from 1961 to 2011.

Next we taped off space for our club’s PSVSA member cars and also parking spaces for the early models of the NW Saab owner’s cars. Thanks Ingvar.

Later, past NW Saab owner’s Club president Dan Morley, and now events director, arrived and helped direct Saab parking for his club and provided many new Saab dealer donations for this event. Thanks Dan.

The next great volunteer of the day was Joe Galant, the PSVCOA chapter coordinator. Joe provided a huge supply of donations from his employer, Ravenna Volvo of Seattle and later became the “Parking Lot Traffic Cop” for the early AM hours, directing traffic entering the parking lot in Volvo car groups of 5 to 10 cars at a time looking for parking in the now small 109 space Virginia-Mason medical clinic parking lot.

Joe did a great job all morning preventing incorrect parking in Virginia-Mason Medical Clinic parking lot adjacent to the XXX Root Beer Drive-In, since the lot is not owned by the XXX Drive-In owners and thus our strict parking rules when using this parking lot for an event. Thanks Joe.

We had more then120 Volvos and Saabs at this Swedish Car Cruise-In which was designed as a “Saturday Night Cruise-In” on a Sunday morning in the winter here in the “Great Northwest”. Our PSVSA club had 15 old Volvos, the Saab club had about 30 old to new cars, and the rest of 75 of the total were all 1975 to 2012 newer Volvos.

Gail Ritchie, our PSVSA assistant coordinator, and webmaster, did a great job manning our PSVSA club table for current and new members that cold day. Finally, we had to go inside for a great XXX Root Beer lunch, get warmed up, and visit with old club friends. This was very fun and warm.

After a great lunch with root beer drinks and fast service, I got our PSVSA five watt megaphone and started giving Volvo and Saab prizes away around 1:30 PM. Gail Ritchie and Dick Libby helped me with the below awards:

Oldest Swedish car - 1953 PV444, Walt Tartar

Longest Ownership – 1966 122S, Peter King, purchased in Sweden with the overseas delivery plan in 1966, for 46 years of ownership.

Swedish car highest mileage – 1966 1800S Goran Freske, 435,000 miles! Swedish cars with women drivers – Gail Ritchie, 1969 1800S and Calye Wakefield, a 240 series Volvo.

Washington State long distance driver – Tom Holt from Walla Walla, Washington

Out of state long distance driver – Aaron Keena from Salem, Oregon

Highest number of Swedish cars owned - Bill Cummings at 11

Phil Lacefield Jr. at 7

Thanks to Gail and Dick for the above help.

The following Swedish car clubs were represented from the Pacific North West. We were the host club for this event, as our Puget Sound Volvo Sports America club. The other Swedish car clubs were the Puget Sound Volvo Club of America; the Volvo Club of America NW Volvo Speed; the Northwest Saab Owners Club; the Saab Club of Seattle and the Volvo Club of America Oregon Pacific NW chapter. Thanks to the above car clubs for the help cleaning up the litter in the parking lot after this fun event.

Some think people think the XXX Root Beer Drive-In owners organize this event every year, which is totally incorrect and wrong!

There is a car club meet almost every Sunday year round at the Issaquah XXX Root Beer Drive-In. Each different car meet is organized by their car club president many months in advance. Please see their schedule. I spend at least 20 to 30 hours organizing this event every year for this Swedish Car Cruise-In at the XXX Root Beer Drive-In with the XXX owners and the Volvo, Saab clubs.

This event has become more geared to the newer Volvos in Pacific Northwest, which I think is great, with the large attendance of 90 to 140 cars every year. This is the reason that it will be my last time organizing this last 6th Swedish Cruise-In meets at the Issaquah, WA. at the XXX Root Beer Drive-In. Our PSVSA club members showing old Volvos at this event are outnumbered 10 to 1 for attendance.

This event needs to be organized by some other Northwest Volvo or Saab club next year. I am now looking for another Swedish car club to take over this event for next year; since I have already RSVP’s the 2/17/2013 date at the XXX Drive-In.

Thanks to all our 15 or more PSVSA members in that large crowd of Swedish cars that attended on that cold day for this event with their classic restored old Volvos. We had a great 1800 Volvo display with a real vintage Volvo race car in front of the XXX Root Beer drive-In for some good pictures.

This meet was one to remember for my last PSVSA hosted 6th Swedish Car Cruise-In meet at the XXX Root Beer Drive-In. Thanks all.

PSVSA Chapter Coordinators, Gary Ramstad and Gail Ritchie.

Beauty and the Beast

For the untrained eye and the hardened heart, it might be a seemingly simple task to decipher who is the Beauty and who is the Beast. But for those of us who own Vintage Volvo’s we know that the real beauty is in the eye of the owner. This month we are featuring twin cars from two owners in different stages of their lives but make no mistake, love like this is timeless and ageless.

Customer Feature

by: Chris Goldsmith

In 1987 I turned 16, and with the help of my sister we bought a '65 122 together. Shortly after, she bought her own 142 and I kept the 122 as my first car. I picked it out anyway, from around age 14 I decided that a 122 was the greatest looking car ever made. Over the next 6 years, that car was frankensteined in every way possible: I installed D-jetronic from a '72 140, I installed a 4-speed OD from an 80s 240, I cut the springs to lower it, I put as many stereo speakers in it as would fit, I drove it for about 15,000 miles with no oil in the rear axle - the gears howled BAD and the pinion was so worn out that I sliced my thumb open on the tip of a gear tooth, and last but not least I hacksawed the roof off to make it a hardtop convertible. In Oregon. As my daily driver. Eventually it just fell apart due to abuse and a college kid's budget, and I stripped it of good parts and sent the shell to the junkyard in 1994. But before that it was a car in which there were a few first kisses, lots of star gazing, dozens of beach trips, and hundreds of tapes worn out.

Fast forward through first home ownership, a college degree, relocating across the country, birth of a kid, an amicable divorce, second home ownership, and a well established career, and I found myself in a position to finally buy one once again 15 years later. I always shopped around for them casually but I was looking for something fairly specific: Cosmetically okay, 100% rust free, but not so original that it was a crime to modify it. I didn't want to hack it up like my first one, but at the same time I've always dreamed of putting a beefy motor in. So in June of 2009 I found the perfect car, very nice looking (the pictures show the body in the condition I bought it, but it is far from flawless) with a history of minor body damage and high miles. Well kept, but not original - exactly what I want. And it came with Bilstein shocks and an IPD front sway bar.

First, I rebuilt the carburetors and both clutch cylinders, stitched up a few seams in the interior, did some rust prevention in the front sheetmetal, and then the real projects started. Lowering coils all around, wide wheels with fat tires, and a full rear suspension rebuild with all IPD poly bushings and a disc brake conversion from an 1800E. It was at this point where I finally started taking it out to Volvo club meets and really enjoying it. I put 1000 miles on it last summer, and after the last club drive I parked it for the winter, and began rebuilding the front suspension. Right now it sits on jackstands, disassembled for control arm reinforcement and powdercoating, to be reassembled in time for the spring club drives. Next plans include a stereo installation and T5 motor swap, but that's in the future. I have a midlife crisis to live through, and the right car to do it in! Just doing my part to keep 'em rolling!

Customer Feature

by: Skyler Stewart

The first time I saw Ava was a couple of years back, at an annual camping trip we go on with a few family friends, Chris and Tonya. So, with my dad in the front seat, and my friend Ian and I in the back we set off to Chris and Tonya's house. My dad, Ian, Tonya and I were all going to take one car to the actual campsite. This is the first time I actually recall noticing Ava, which was essentially just me saying, "Hey, that's a pretty car!" My dad said he'd talk to Chris about getting the car from him since it had just been sitting there. I honestly didn't expect anything to actually come of it, but lo and behold probably a year-ish later the car is arriving at our house, all ready to have the inside worked on! The story itself isn't exactly enthralling, but feel free to romanticize it.

While the story itself isn't very exciting, I am incredibly excited. Not only do I get some experience working on something like the interior of car, but I get a beautiful vintage car. Well, that's assuming I get straight A's this year. Which I forgot to mention, I have to get straight A's this year for Ava to actually become mine, but I'm not really having any issues thus far. I pulled it off for first semester, and my second semester is actually easier than my first, so I can't say I'm real worried about it. At any rate, half the time when I'm riding in one of my friends cars or something I end up getting excited and impatient and proceed to complain about how bad I want to finish Ava. They don't seem to mind though, I figure they'd tell me to shut up if they did. Not in a mean way, of course.

As for the actual work on the car, well, there was and still is a lot of work, but we've made a good dent in it. As you saw in the pictures, the front seats were pretty beat up, and the floor boards were pretty rusty, so of course, that had to be taken care of. First, though, we had to remove all the tar paper the covered just about everything. What we did was got a couple of scrapers, basically a razor blade on a stick, and a heat gun. We heated the paper as we scraped it off. Once we got that off we began grinding, even in places without the rust. This was because planned on putting down por 15, and it doesn't like smooth surfaces. Basically we hooked wire brushes up to power tools and got to work. Once we had all the interior ground, we moved to the trunk. At this point in time my dad had gone to get new brushes, as the old ones were wearing out. He came back with one of those paint remover wheels and oh boy, that thing did the job in a matter of minutes. Of course, it was kind of a one time use thing, but still it was impressive in comparison. At one point or another, my mom and I got in and cleaned out the car with just some soapy water as well. But after we finished that we ended up taking a break for a while. I'm a thespian at the high school, so I do every production, and our first show of the year, Almost Maine, was about to start, and theatre keeps you pretty busy so we didn't work on the car much during that time. It went really well though, we did it in 3/4th arena style, so there was seating up on the stage on 3 of the 4 sides. It was really cool, but I digress. After we finished up that show my dad and I went on a hunt for new side panels, seats and a new back windshield. Speaking of, my dad was working on the car at one point without me, and as he was grinding he hit a screw that went flying and hit the windshield, which is why it is now completely wrecked. Anyways, we hit up a guy also named Chris whom we learned about from our friend Chris, after driving out and meeting with him, we came back with some new parts for Ava.

Unfortunately, he didn't have any seats or side panels in red, so we just got some of his black ones off of him. We got a new rear window as well. Once again, we didn't really work on Ava much for a while, my dad's been pretty busy with work, and I've been distracted with school and friends, until a week or two ago after I asked him about getting our friend Chris over to weld a hole in my floorboard. So he came over, and we got to work. We had to move Ava from under the canopy to in our garage, where my step mom's '60 something mustang lives. Once we got them moved Chris began to set up, and get everything ready, when I came out, and he had me cut one of the metal pieces as my dad got a picture. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to welding that night, because we didn't end up having the right welding tip to do it. So the next day, I climbed into the trunk, my body where the gas tank used to be, and began cleaning it out with acetone, so that we could start painting it with Por15. That took most the day. After that, we taped everything that we didn't want to get paint on, and began the painting process for the Por15. That's pretty much takes us up to today, we've done a little bit more cleaning with acetone on the inside, and I taped some stuff off yesterday, but other than that, that's about as far as we've gotten. Oh! And Chris did come back over and welded the holes in the floorboard.

We still need to do all of the interior, with the cleaning, and acetone. We need to fix back door on the driver's side, because the window mechanism doesn't work, the back door on the passenger side doesn't latch, we need to replace the rear window, and all the locks. From there, I think we just need to put everything back inside! So I'd say we're pretty close to being finished, but it's probably still a month or two away since most our work gets done over the weekends.

Alphatech Vintage Volvo Shift Knobs

My name is Pete Burrows and I make walnut shift knobs for vintage Volvos. I make them in several styles, threaded to fit each model from the 444s thru the 240 series. I also do custom designs using exotic hardwoods.

My experience with vintage Volvos began back in the 1960s when they were just used cars. During the next several years I owned most models from 444s to 164s and the 140 series. Then I got the bug to restore a favorite motorbike from my past.

I founded the B.S.A. Goldstar Owner’s Club in 1974 and for many years my hobbies revolved around classic British and European motorcycles. About 10 years ago I stopped riding, and when a dilapidated 544 showed up on the local Craigslist locally I couldn’t resist it!

After doing a complete restoration, I decided to add the finishing touch, a walnut shift knob like the accessory items of the ‘60s. After a fruitless search, I decided to make one. With my background in engineering and an interest in woodwork how hard could it be?

I managed to produce one using my metal lathe, upgraded with a threaded insert, and recessed a Volvo badge into the top. Not so hard!

People liked it so I decided to make some more and put them on E-Bay. This meant ordering custom emblems, making various inserts, purchasing a wood lathe and tools and finding quality walnut turning stock. They started selling immediately to customers worldwide and the enthusiastic feedback just blew me away! Next I set up my website and added a few more items. The website is http://alphatech-v.com/ Vintage Volvo Innovations.