My Black Brick

“Made in Sweden” is a set of photos documenting one owners fleet of Volvos. Lots of pretty pictures of parts.

Is that tire smoke… or burning oil?

Wired online has a quick article by Adam Savage, co-host of Discovery Channels “MythBusters“, where he explains how owning a used Volvo 245 helped him develop an understanding of how to break down complex systems into workable steps. He states:

Every repair followed the same progression:
(1) I don’t know how
(2) I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it
(3) I have to do it
(4) hey, that wasn’t so hard!

This was pretty much how I fell into Volvo 240 repair. The most I’d worked on before was bicycles. I had a friend in high school who rebuilt a 1969 Dodge Charger and I remember being mystified by all the parts he had in his garage. How could they possibly be put back together correctly? I don’t know if I’d be able to do a complete rebuild, but I do know that projects that I had previously been mystified by I now am proud to say I’ve done. Some worked out better than others but at least when I stubbornly drive my smoking brick to the mechanic I know what it was that I screwed up.

In September of this year Volvo driver Seldon Cooper flipped his 240s odometer to 000000, driving over a million miles in 26 years. That translates to almost 40k miles a year between PA, MD, NJ and DC. Lehman Volvo of Mechanicsburg, MD held a celebration for the turnover and produced the charming video above.

Another Volvo 240 wagon sacrificed at the cinematic altar, this time in the movie “Savages” by Oliver Stone and starring Blake Lively. I made the above GIF from the movie trailer. Looks like it got blasted by a rocket launcher and went BOOM.

It’s been over 2 years since I painted my Virgo 15″ front rims but I never did the rear. The difference between the new paint and the old rim isn’t really noticeable to the untrained eye.

In the image above I rotated the side wheels, so the clean one is on the rear. I thought of trying a 2-tone paint job but now I’m not so sure. I think it might be cool to go with a neutral gray color, non-metallic, and then use a super glossy clear coat. Similar to the beautiful Aviator Gray for the Audi TT. Considering my budget, I may just go with a primer and clear coat.

Recently the 2006 German film “Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)” has been popping up in articles I’ve read and I finally got around to seeing it. This is an excellent film about life in East Germany in the late 1980s and explores the inhumanity of stifling personal freedom and the inevitable corruption that comes from a system of spying and secret police.

I wouldn’t be writing about the movie if there weren’t an old brick in it and I have to say I was surprised to see one. If a member of the Stasi, Germany’s state security service, was going to be riding around in a limo I would have thought it would be a Benz. But bloated Minister Bruno Hempf is driven around in a gorgeous, dark blue 200 series Volvo limo throughout the film. Unfortunately the interior shots are from a Mercedes or BMW.

According to comments on the Internet Movie Cars Database entry for the film, Volvo/Bertone created these limos specifically for the German government.

I parked on the sidewalk to wait for a street sweeper that never came.

Beardy McBrick was traveling to the annual hacky sack festival with his buds when he came upon the most dreaded of obstacles: a hill. He warned his friends it would be a long, hard slog in his diesel 245 and that they should just relax. “Bummer,” his buddy Phil said. “At least we have a good way to pass the time,” Phil chuckled as he handed around his packed chillum.

An hour later they’d past the half-way mark when something blue flashed in McBrick’s smog-coated side-view mirror. It was a car; a diesel in fact. But this was no ancient Benz or Volvo. It was a BMW, and it was coming up fast. “Maybe you should slow down and let him pass,” his girlfriend, Sunflower, suggested. And he did. They looked in awe as the strange rocket car passed by with nary a puff of smoke. Phil stared with mouth agape as the blue streak sped over the apex and out of sight. “Damn, McBrick!” he exclaimed, “you shoulda’ bought that car instead of taking this donation from your English professor.”

“Yeah…” McBrick thought, as he looked with dread at the climb ahead, “then these damn hills wouldn’t be such a drag.” The wagons’s exhaust belched a dark cloud and woke McBrick from his day-dream. “Hey Phil!” he shouted good-naturedly, “quit bogarting and share the love!” They all laughed. McBrick flipped his cassette of Shakedown Street and settled in for the rest of the hill.

- Inspired by “Changes”, an ad for diesel engined BMWs.

This Ghost Volvo 240 was posted on “Scratch Made Cars” back in 2004 as a work in progress. Johannes Saar has more complete auto renders on his own site, including a sweet Dodge Challenger.