Volvo 140 series: prelude

I am not quite sure how it all happened. Volvos have always had a certain appeal, but it was never anything really compelling. Since I was a teenager I have thought wagons of almost any make and model were sexy, Volvo or not; but I had never had actually bought one. While working in Oregon one average day I happened to see a flat black 145 with massive rims pulling a u-turn while I was on my way home from work, and my attention was caught and held fast. Something about that car struck me as incredibly cool. I guess that was the real starting point, and soon afterword I was half-heartedly surfing craigslist.org for old bricks. After my truck died I really needed a car, and my wife's truck had a sloppy timing chain and was running on three cylinders. The time was ripe. One morning while absently looking though the Portland area car listings, almost by accident, we found exactly what we were looking for: A 1972 145 wagon, lowered, Virgo wheels, rebuilt and gently souped-up engine, manual transmission with overdrive. It was perfect, and my darling wife fell in love with it as much as I did. From then on our interest in old Volvos grew into a fever and is now a full-blown addiction; in 13 months we have put 19,000 miles on our wagon, and it just keeps running better every day. We have had our share of break-downs of course, but that is half the fun. And it is all about the fun. The only reason this blog exists is for the sheer pleasure of driving, repairing, building and living with those cars we can't seem to shake; we're all freaks---but it's good here.