A360P

Hanging out in the waiting room at Volvos Only...

The waiting room at Volvos Only is as big as the sky. Okay, so it's not really a waiting room, but it's always nice to be able to sit out in the sun in the middle of February, particularly while basking the the warm aura of Dean Pleasants' beautiful. Volvo 1800ES. Love those wheels!

Volvo 1800E, MGB GT

While driving back from Dry Creek Valley last week I was tooling down the 280 trying to avoid the traffic on the 101 when this Volvo 1800E whizzed by in the right hand lane while I was standing still in the fast lane. I guess it pays to be local and know how traffic flows on your daily commute. This looks to be from around 1969-1972 and is probably an E....very nicely restored, and seemingly a daily driver that looks a lot sharper than my 1965 1800S that I use as a daily driver. I'm a little wary of taking my car on long trips (say, to SF or Phoenix) but that's almost as much about its lack of air conditioning as it is the car's reliability. I have few qualms about driving it around town on a daily basis though - Triple A is good about long-distance tows. In fact, here's a shot of my car from the other night getting hooked up to the tow truck:

The situation was pretty pathetic (in the literal sense of the word) and it came very late in the evening, but the lesson has been learned, that lesson being namely that it's not a good idea to buy cheap key blanks to make copies of the ignition key! #@$%&!

 

Back to Highway 101 passing by the San Martin airport, I saw this nicely restored MGB-GT cruising along the freeway at maybe 20 mph slower than the rest of us were cruising.
More power to 'em (literally)! This was one of the cars I initially lusted after in my teenaged years, but I've read way too many horror stories about them to want to bother with actually owning one. Maybe a MGA or TD or TF 1500 would be more in keeping with whatever aesthetic I profess to maintain. Whichever MGB you wind up buying, you'd do well to check out The MG Experience website. Lots of experienced people involved there, an extremely useful resource if you're restoring or maintaining one of these cars yourself.

Porsches, Lamborghinis, Nissan GTR, Mercedes Benz, Volvo and Google!

My thoughts of late have been turning toward wheel designs and what's appropriate for certain cars. Although I love the look of this Porsche 911 SC, I'm not so crazy about the wheels. Perhaps that's just because the design is similar to what's on my Volvo right now, and I'm not crazy about them either:
Still, I like what's on the 1800S more than the thicker, less graceful wheels on the Porsche. I'd still much rather be driving the German car, but I'm doing alright now. For a grand I can go with a set of American Racing Torq-Thrusts that aren't even close to the Volvo's original rims, but are period correct and look great.

I was at a swank Beverly Hills cocktail event a got a shot of the cars parked in front of the house before being tackeled by a the security guy. These belong to the owner of the house and strikes me as being the sort of collection owned by a guy who doesn't know what he's in the mood to driveand who has enough money to not let that trouble him. There were several other supercars parked in the courtyard, all of recent vintage and in immaculate condition. The colors were all sort of drab, but who can see them from the driver's seat in any of these cars. I think the Mercedes Benz SLR would be the most fun to drive on a long trip, but the Porsche Carerra GTwould be my track day choice. Well, most of the time.

I'm not sure why these guys pulled over to the side of PCH to chat but perhaps it had to do with the vagaries of all-wheel drive, or whether it's worth spending the extra money for a lower-to-the-ground Itallian car with just a little more performance than the Nissan GT-R. We'll probably never know. Maybe they just got lost on the way to Neptune's Net.

And here's a shot of some vivid (if not lurid) colors on a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder stuck in traffic. Nice flowers, nice blue color on the Lamborghini, all pushing some Proustian memory buttons of nice, sunshiny Malibu days gone past.

And finally, how would we know where we are (or where we're going) without the work of these guys? Followed a googlemaps car into Camarillo the other day. If you see an old green Volvo 1800 S in the shots heading up PCH, that'd be me.

1965 Volvo 1800 S and a messed-up VW R32 timing gear

It seemed like a good idea at the time...y'see, my 2004 Volkswagen R32 (the A360P this blog is named after) was throwing a check engine light but there didn't seem to be anything wrong. And the idiot light was intermittant and after QBN plugged in the computer we kind of narrowed the problem down to the probability that the problem might be cam-related. But then the light would go off and the problem (such as it was) couldn't be traced. When the car went dead on the 405 freeway a couple of weeks later it made sense to have the car towed to a nearby dealer for repair. During the course of replacing the fuel pump, the dealer magically brought the check engine light back to life and thence proclaimed that the cams were malfunctioning and that for about $3K they could replace them and solve all my problems.

This didn't seem right to me (especially after the $900 fuel pump replaicement) so I called QBN but he was swamped with having to fly off to Havana or somewhere to fix a faulty gas tank cover or replace a windshield wiper on a Spyker and he didn't have time to deal with my plebian Volkswagen so he sent me over to see Jose Davilla at EuroTech Motors in Culver City. Jose  plugged his computer in, listened to the engine, and said that the problem seemed to be cam related but that he'd need some time to figure out for sure what was causing the problem. This was in late-November and by the time I got around to making arrangements to get the car to him, most of his crew was already heading out of town for the holidays, so it was early January before I was able to get the R to his shop.

In the meantime, I realized that I'd need to do something about having a car to drive while the R32 was in the shop, plus it would be good to have another car to use as a daily driver in the winter. The 2004 VW MK IV R32 had about 145K miles on it, and although that's well within the realm of probability with a high-quality German car, mine has seen time on the track and has been driven somewhat, well, assertively on the streets, so if I could use it more sparingly I'd probably be able to keep it longer without having to resort to extremely reactive repairs (better to be proactive than reactive, right?)
2004 VW R32 on the way to Big Sur

Speaking of driving sparingly, my friend Roberto purchased a 1965 Volvo 1800 S about ten years ago and drove it during the winter and on days when his Alfa Romeo was in the shop (surprisingly few of those). His landlord had decided to increase the garage rent to an extorionate amount and Roberto decided on principle to not pay the ransom. He'd contacted me to see if I knew of anyone who might be interested but we were still sort of/maybe getting out of the recession and nobody really had any extra money laying around. The car was parked in Inglewood in front of an office complex and by November, Roberto just wanted the goddamn thing GONE and when I absentmindedly mentioned to him that I was sorta/kinda looking for a transportation vehicle that ran consistently, he made me an offer to sell me the Volvo at a price that was so reasonable that I (well, almost) felt bad about accepting it.

I made arrangements to pick up the Volvo and  drove it over to Wade Wiehe at Volvos Only on Crenshaw and Hyde Park. It was my first time actually driving the car for more than a few blocks and I noticed that it wasn't really a "just wash it and it'll be perfect" sort of car. It ran a little rough. The transmission didn't really like to go into gear, and once it got into gear it didn't always want to stay there. The brakes weren't particularly in fine fettle either, but WTF, who needs brakes when the body is in nice shape? Volvo 1800S parked at Grassini Family Vineyard in Happy Canyon

I got it to the shop and Wade said he'd check it out to see what needed to be done to make it a great daily driver. He called me back the next day with the good news/bad news report. The good news was that the body was rust-free and was in pretty good shape and that it had a lot more original parts than one would expect on a 45 year old car and that I could put a LOT of money into repairs without being underwater in terms of the car's value vs. what it cost me. The bad news was that there was more than a little work that would be required before the car could be deemed "safe" and "consistent" and that I wouldn't exactly be underwater but I should probably have a scuba suit handy.

He set to work repairing the brakes, giving it a complete tuneup, redoing a good chunk of the electrical system, and  compiling a triage list of things that would need attention at some point in the relatively near future. I never really grasped the importance of the term "sorted out" in an auction catalogue until Wade had "sorted out" this 1800S. As seems to be the case with Volvos of this era, shops that should know better (and mechanics who don't have a clue) have a proclivity to repair problems with parts that look sort of like the actual part, or use parts in an 1800S that were supposed to be used for an 1800E. I had this issue with my 1973 1800ES and this 1800S was no different. There's no possible way that this car could have been running with the assortment of just plain wrong replacement parts that had been inserted here and there on it, but it did. Some of the gaffes were understandable, but how does someone come up with a wiring scheme resulting in the electronic overdrive being able to work in ALL gears, not just 4th? I had the world's first 11-speed Volvo transmission (including overdrive capabilities in reverse)! We also discovered that the engine had been upgraded to to a B-20 and that the aftermarket wheels didn't exactly fit properly (but they look good so I left them on). Other good news is that the car has virtually no rust, the non-stock seats were recently redone, new carpet was installed a year or so ago, and overall, it looks good if you're more than 10 feet away from it (not quite so good if you're closer, but still not all that bad).

After getting the exhaust rewelded and installing a radio, the car worked well until the VW was finished, sometime around the middle of February. It turned out that the problem did involve the cams, but after a couple of weeks of tests and pondering the results of the test, Jose narrowed the problem down to the cam regulator. This was good news, because this is the sort of repair that doesn't require pulling the transmission, and in this car, you might as well replace the clutch since the transmission would be out already, but that adds about a grand to the bill. With visions of a <$1000 repair bill dancing in my head, I agreed to have the necessary work done. Unfortunately, once he got into the engine and began pulling stuff out, he discovered that although there were certainly problems with the cam regulator, there was way more than the usual wear one would expect to see on a timing gear. A couple of thousand bucks more later, a bullet had been dodged because of Eurotech's desire to do things right. A new timing gear went in along with timing chains and the cam regulator. Neither Jose or QBN had ever seen gears with this sort of wear on its teeth - it's likely just a defect in manufacturing, but the car is way past warranty at this stage so I'm not going to get too upset about it. At least the problem was discovered before there was massive failure and I'd need to buy a new engine.
(good one on the left, bad one on the right)

A couple of days before work on the R32 was going to be completed, the Volvo began leaking transmission fluid like it was trying out for the leading role in "The Niagra Falls Story". There was a problem with the master clutch cylinder, and I left an lake of transmission fluid just about anywhere I'd park. It gave me the opportunity for a lot of good practice in speed-shifting, as I began to get pretty good about shifting without using the clutch by the time I got the car over to the shop in Covina.

At the point the two cars have never been in my garage at the same time, but that situation should change within the next week or two. The VW is running as flawlessly (I've put almost 2000 miles on it in the past month) and the Volvo has had a new Weber carburetor installed (buh-bye to the dieseling!), the rear brakes have been repaired and the wheels rebuilt, and the transmission repairs are almost complete so it will be a breeze to get (and keep) it in gear. Some little nicky-nacky things have also been done on the car to make it a little more driveable and now it's just a matter of selling enough wine and/or plasma to be able to pay for it all. I've also done a fair amount of soundproofing and heat proofing with stuff bought from Second Skin and I'm looking forward to driving the car throughout the summer, at least on the days that aren't going to be too hot (no A/C in the Volvo).
There's always supposed to be a rainbow at the end, right?

 

Britania Triumphant!

I've always been impressed with the Lotus/Caterham design and overall capability. Their power-to-weight ratio is monumental and they're faster than they look (and they look pretty fast). However, I've been warned away from them due to safety issues, as much due to how people drive around them as inherent touchiness. The driver in the photo above (taken on the 405 Freeway in West LA around 1 PM on a Saturday afternoon) indicates that he'd rather be safe than sorry; wearing a helmet while driving a car with a rollcage might actually work to his advantage someday. Then again, the design has been in production since 1957, and it it were really dangerous, wouldn't a Ralph Nader-type have already had it banned? And what's up with the blue tape on the rear fender? Is he coming from the track? Is the car spitting out solid exhaust? did he just get tired of the green/yellow paint scheme and want to punch it up with some blue?

The Triumph Stag has always struck me as a bit of an odd duck, but this car seen in Venice, CA on Christmas Eve was quite nicely done (I would like it noted also that I've never complained in public about this car and others in the Bsh Leyland family):

It did indeed seat four, and the occupants looked as if they were having a lot of fun in the car. The restoration quality was excellent, and I can only wonder what this newly-purchased car was worth on the lot.

From this angle you can see some allusions to 60s and early 70s Ferrari design (but you've gotta squint before totally convincing yourself of that sort of design lineage).

Speaking of lineage, here's a Triumph TR4A parked in front of my 1965 Volvo 1800S. The Triumph is also from about the same time, and the first couple of years of the Volvo were manufactured in England by Jenson. Unfortunately, quality control wasn't "Job #1" (more likely "Job #463" from what I've read) and this presaged the whole reputation for awful construction that British Leyland basked in during the 1970s and 80s (maybe longer, but by that time I was so beyond being interested in the cars they were making that I didn't even keep up with who they'd reorganized as). A couple of nice looking cars, with semi-matching paint schemes and plenty of chrome to keep polished. Or not.

1973 Volvo P1800 ES, Paso Robles, CA

The first week of August I was headed North to the central coast to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. As we were passing through Santa Barbara we passed a beautifully restored Volvo P1800 ES, a car near and dear to my heart because I'd owned one for some 15 years before selling it and embarking on the resurrection-for-eternity on the new 1972 Volvo P1800 ES.

I recall having seen the car in this photo at the Motors4Toys gtg in Agoura Hills a couple of years ago and at that time it was about as perfectly restored as any ES that I'd seen. Due to traffic conditions and the need for me to get to SLO County quickly I didn't have time to get any closeup shots of the car, but then, it's not like I've never seen one before or anything.

A couple of hours later I'd dropped Joyce off in Santa Margarita at Ancient Peaks for a winery tour and had dropped wine off in Paso Robles for later delivery for use at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and thought that I might as well stop for a burger in Paso before heading into San Luis to begin preparing food for my mother's party the next day. Lo and behold, the 73 ES was parked on the street outside of the burger place and I had the opportunity to get a little closer to it.
I'm really partial to orange on the ES, although the original orange doesn't exactly pop. Likewise the OEM red paint on Volvos of that era. The last two ESs I've owned have been bright (Ferrari) red but on this car the orange is pretty amazing. As is the quality of the paint and the body work. I'm not totally sold on the IPD wheels but, although they look better than the originals they're still not my favorites.
I left a note for the owner, telling him how much I liked the paint job and the overall look of the car. Turns out he was headed up to Palo Alto for a Volvo meet and then on to Kalamazoo, MI for the big national Volvo meet. I will likely be in touch with him as my car gets a little closer to completion.

It's moving at a pace that's considerably faster than "glacial" but not exactly with much alacrity. The suspension has been replaced, the engine pulled and parts are being amassed to rebuild the motor. I've been putting some time into soundproofing the interior and the floorboards are being replaced.
At this point, any readers with money to invest might do well to put some dough into Second Skin Audio, Dynamat, or the people who make POR15, as I've put a heck of a lot of money into making the world's first rust-proof, heat-proof, and sound-proof P1800 ES. I'm assuming that once it's all together it'll go like a bat outta hell (the hp's being doubled) but I know that it's going to be a lot quieter than most similar-era steel-bodied Volvos.(more on this car as stuff is done to it...there's a threat that it might actually be drivable by the end of the year, but given the amount of work remaining to be accomplished and keeping in mind how long it's taken to "complete" what's already been done, I'm hoping that I'll be able to park the R32 at some time in the first quarter of the new year. We'll see...

Volvo P1800ES

Not the sort of car to fade into the background, I saw this golden yellow 1972 or 1973 Volvo P1800ES parked in West LA the other evening. Nice work on the body panels, aftermarket wheels and this "look at me" paint job combine for a stunning step up from the reputation for ordinariness that Volvo has earned over the years.One would think that this car gets parked in the front row with the Ferraris, Bentleys, and Aston Martins when left with the valet at any restaurant or club in town.

To my thinking, the P1800ES has always been the standout car in terms of Volvo design. I like the P1800 coupe just fine, but the lines of the ES sportwagon just seem to me to flow better.

The picture above came from when I owned two of them. The 1972 ES on the left is right now, getting the engine blowed up to about twice its original horsepower. All sorts of rust inhibitor, heat proofing and sound deadening material (mainly from Second Skin Audio in AZ) has also gone into the interior, and it's receiving a new competition suspension, headers, and radiator. The 1973 ES on the right has moved on to a new residence in Chino Hills, where its owner (a Swede who grew up in the shadow of the Volvo factory) is putting a lot of hours into restoring it back to stock. I calculated once that I'd put over 500K miles onto that car over the 20+ years I owned it.

Despite a tendency to get a little warm (given the average temperatures of their homeland, the Swedes apparently didn't see a big need to overengineer either the air conditioning or the engine's cooling system), the car is a total blast to drive. In its original form, it doesn't accelerate as much as it gathers momentum. 90-100 horsepower are not conducive to drag racing, but once you get up to speed, you can cruise along at 80 mph all day long. With larger pistons and a high performance cam, it should be a real screamer up in the hills but stable enough to hold its own on the freeway and for daily driving up and down PCH.

Google Volvo P1800ES and you come up with a lot of stuff. They pop up for sale pretty regularly, and it's been useful having IPD on my phone's speed dial when things need to be rebuilt. Volvo still stocks a lot of replacement parts, although the knicky-knack pieces like door handles and interior panels and body panels need to be sourced from Don Thibault of p1800.com.