I was contacted late last year to do a “Volvo Story” feature for the IPD newsletter “The Brick”. I happily obliged and am excited to see it online today.
The photo used on the site was taken at a chicken farm in NY state, before I installed sport springs. I may go back this month so I should take another shot to compare.
I’m disappointed that I didn’t get chosen as a runner up for the ipd RWD photo contest. I’m sure they got plenty of submissions. I’ll try not to be bitter by saying that there’s some cool photos in there. I think next year I need to go for the pensive, looking off into the sunset style that won last years contest.
As for another contest I didn’t quite get accepted for, above is a partial header graphic I created for Volvolution community. I put together a mock evolution of the fronts of Swedish wagons. Enjoy.
iPD has a nice profile on their in-house graphic designer and his Volvo collection. He’s got the following:
He’s another brick lover who has swedish autos following him home.
IPD had a free shipping sale so I finally bought their 25mm anti-sway bars. They sat around the house for a few weeks but I finally put them on today.
My friend Andy keeps his Porsche at a garage about a 1/2 hour away and I drove out there to use the hydraulic lift. We jacked the Brick up in the air and pulled off the old bars. I thought we wouldn’t need to take off the front wheels but I was wrong. We had a minor disaster where we almost dropped the rear differential; I ended up supporting the rear on my shoulders while Andy ran to get a jack. Other than that, installation was straight forward and simple.
When I hit the road I had a tough time noticing a difference. You really have to try to rock the car side-to-side to feel the improvement. There’s no difference when cruising straight down the road, but hitting exit/entrance ramps is a marked change. It wasn’t as dramatic as I expected; the bars really make the car drive like it should, rather than being a big performance boost. Lane changes and turns feel safer and I’m now aware of how poorly it handled without them. I can only imagine how bad the older bricks were that didn’t have anti-sways, or had ones that were thin as paper clips.
