Hi all. Yesterday was probably the last day ever I've seen my old Volvo and it just doesn't feel right. Sure, it was just another old-timer and yes, it still needed a lot of work, has been a bit neglected for the past couple years and it sure looked like it would have been this way maybe even for the next couple of years too. And yes, I guess my dad has a (rather good) point when he says it's taking up quite a lot of space and isn't looking like it's going anywhere soon. And I sure know he has had more then plenty of patience with the project as it is already. It's just that it turned out to be way more work than I hoped/counted on which, combined with long working days, some back problems (and the usual list of excuses I guess), etc., is the main reason everything has taken so damn long in the first place. So now I guess the one million dollar (or in my case a couple of hundred Euro's worth of Volvo ;-) question is 'if you hardly looked at it for all this time Biek, why are you going to miss that old rusty thing so damn much?' To me that's kind of hard to explain but I'll give it a try. Please bare with me on this one. Mind you this might turn out to be a long 'session'. Frequent visitors of Biek.net may already know that I've never before posted a single picture on this entire site. Up until now I've so far managed to get the message across with just my words. Just for this once I'm going to put one up so you all know what I'm rambling on about. Please enjoy the view, as I once did. This specific pretty cool blue/gray 1964 Volvo Amazon P121 Coupe was mine. All mine, and has been just that for the past couple of years. During which it has been just about the only touchable thing I had left that was completely my own, it was all paid for and no-one would ever take that away from me. The untouchable if you will. A lot of things came, went and happened during that period. I've been kicked around by a number of employers, lost a couple of very good friends and generally had quite a rough period, which thank God is now behind me. But one thing has always remained: this Volvo. Even though I might not have worked on it all that I could, even though there were times when I could have but just didn't work on it. Fact was that it was there, period. I remember I fell like a brick for that cute vehicle, from the first moment my dad emailed me that picture of it, asking me if maybe it was something for me. Within two weeks the owner drove it to us, it was kind of a good bye trip for him, and then there it was, my own classic Volvo. From that moment on I had about half a year before it had to get it's mandatory yearly technical check-up which I already knew it would fail because of the state it was in. Even though I at that time had a great lease car for my work, I drove that Volvo for the whole half year to work and back, God I loved touring that car. All ideas' about haste and stress disappear like snow for the sun when you get behind the wheel of a classic car like this one. All you want to do is roll down the window, set the radio (with no less then one speaker in the back of the car mind you :-) to a background volume and cruise to the end of the world. The interior might look old (duh, let's call it classic shall we?) and sober but the seats make you feel like a king and there's more than plenty space for four grown-ups, even though it's 'just' a coupe model. To give you a comparison: it's a inch longer than the two thousand and two Subaru Legacy station I had at the time, and that's quite a roomy car. In a 'normal' or recent car when you're driving on the highway and spot a truck a couple of miles in front of you, you pass that same truck within a couple of minutes whereas when you're cruising an old car like this chances are you're looking at that truck for the rest of the journey, because it's traveling at just about the same speed you are :-) And you know what? In that Volvo, it really doesn't matter whether or not you eventually pass that truck. It's all part of the game. These are just a few nice memories I'll keep of it forever and I do know for sure that those will never be taken from me. Unlike the car itself. I do hope the new owner has just as much fun with it as I did, so at least some good will come from it. Take care baby, be good.