Category Archives: Other People’s Bricks

MythBusters Adam Savage and his 1978 Volvo 245

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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.

Seldon Cooper and His Million Mile Brick

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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.

Wood Burning Brick

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I spent Saturday replacing the front seat foam on the drivers seat and attempted to fix the seat warmer. The seat is much nicer now, but the heater still isn’t working.

A gent in Switzerland has found an alternative to seat warmers. He went ahead and installed a wood stove in the passenger seat of his car. The image above shows the chimney poking out of the roof. Below is video and an interview:

I assume the translation from this video is “The blower motor in my brick totally blew and there was no way i was going to spend a week digging through my dashboard to fix it. Chainsaw method notwithstanding, I figured it’d be easier to just install a wood-burning stove in the shotgun seat. Not like I’m gonna attract any women with this tank anyway.”

via Jalopnik

Can’t Kill It

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A brick lover has to be careful when searching YouTube with the term “Volvo 240”. It seems like half the videos involve groups of teenage boys hooning their car into the ground… or off the ground, flying through the air to the music of Rammstein.

The rollover at 5:35 is pretty bad ass. None of the glass broke. Keep watching to see in slo-mo.

Brick of Mass Destruction

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Last summer I spotted this brick at the NJ state fairgrounds and met the owner, Joe. He was preparing for the evenings demolition derby. Turns out he’s at it again this year with a 240 sedan. He’ll be competing at the Sussex Co. Fairgrounds on Sunday, Aug 7 and Monday, Aug 8th, both nights from 7:30-9, but he’ll probably be around on Sunday getting ready. Good luck Joe!

Here’s his rundown of the event last year, plus a gallery of pics:

This 240 wagon raced 3 times. 1st time disqualifed 4th place for an oil fire in the compact class, 2nd time disqualifed 4th place for a slight gas leak in the compact class and on the final race i raced the car among the six cylinder class of cars (intepids, luminas, bonnevilles, montecarlos, etc) and destroyed them getting a second place only due to an electrical short.