TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

When I was a young kid, I wasn’t interested in cars at all. My older sister got her license three years before me, and I saw her having to play chauffeur to her friends in Dad’s Chevy. It didn’t seem like a good time, crazy as that sounds. I remember being crammed in the back seat of the Impala Coupe with two or three older girls on the way to school and being unhappy about it, even though I had a crush on at least one of them. What an idiot!

At some point, I woke up to the fact that a driver’s license was a ticket to freedom, and, as I had finally found a social group that I wanted to be a part of, a car was a crucial element of my teenage universe.

I learned to drive in Mom’s ’84 Datsun, from the era where they were rebranding to Nissan, a five speed two door Sentra, I think. She was involved with a car guy around that time and there was an interesting automotive evolution that occurred in our lives. Her Nissan needed a set of tires and with his influence playing a factor, it got some sporty Vredestein rubber. I remember what a revelation that was, suddenly having more grip to chuck the little car around with. I also learned that you could do donuts in a front wheel drive car if you did them in reverse gear. (Sorry, Mom!)

Important to my growing automotive enthusiasm, Steve was a Volvo guy, and Mom and I took a trip from Newport, Rhode Island to Watkins Glen in New York for a Volvo Club of America rally at the famous Grand Prix race track. The way I remember it, we drove out in a rental and drove back in a black, 2 door Volvo Turbo, with black louvers on the rear window and a wing on the trunk! Who knew?

When it came time for me to buy my first car, I had one influencer trying to convince me that a Pontiac Grand Prix was a good choice, while Steve was pushing me towards a Volvo. I bought a rusty ’74 144 for $900 and quickly decided that a little bodywork was needed, and an art car paint job would be appropriate.

I caused all kinds of trouble with that car, even though I only had it for a couple of years. I started to realize that I really liked driving as close to the limit as I could. I entered a gymkhana at a VCOA rally in Virginia, and later some autocross events where I could find them. Did you know that Volvos used the same steering column hub design as a Triumph TR7? That was the steering wheel I bolted on. Plus sway bars, KYB gas shocks, Monza exhaust tip…

…as much as I hate loud exhausts these days, I was an absolute criminal when I was a teenager. I drove this car for a while with a straight pipe, and would do laps of Ocean Drive past the mansions and country clubs of Newport. I’m sure I could be heard from the other side of the bay. For a long time I had a cassette tape recording of the sound of a lap, and I’d listen to it on repeat, visualizing the braking points and apexes with my eyes closed.

I had my first and only big street crash in the old turd, when I misjudged a corner entry, dropped wheels at the exit and over-corrected, crossing the center line and hitting a old man in a Toyota hard in the left front quarter. His car was totaled, while the Volvo had a six inch dent in the fender. Thankfully the driver was uninjured; he was a veteran of WWII and Korea, and how ridiculous to be taken out by a dumb kid in Swedish car! He counseled me that it was all going to be OK, though I was having a bit of an emotional breakdown there in the middle of the road, steam hissing out his his smashed radiator and broken lenses scattered around me.

I drove that car to college in Detroit, where my art school, car designer wannabe friends and I would do laps around the mid-town Center for Creative Studies campus, late at night. On one of these nights, as I exited a big tire smoking full-lock drift and came to an intersection with Woodward avenue, two patrol cops on foot rapidly approached us with their guns drawn, ordering me to stop. Amazingly, I got away with a warning. Detroit in ’87-88 was the murder capital of the world, and cops had more important things to do than worry about dumb college kids playing World Rally Championship.

(Belle Isle had a legit Indycar circuit that also got night laps from time to time.)

We lived high up in a 12 story tower next to the school, and one winter night, I was encouraged to do some snow laps of the empty parking lot. My friends and classmates were hanging out the windows up above, cheering me on as I went bigger and bigger, until I had the car at full steering lock for most of the lap. Then I went a little too big and turned a rear wheel into an oval as I clobbered the curb. Imagine the noise from above as I slowly limped out of the lot. Good times.

Remarkable, the change from me at 13 years old, uninterested in cars, to 18 year old me, studying to be a car designer, in Detroit.

In the end, the 144 was bought by a guy from Providence for $300, and I had the distinct feeling that it was going to end up in Narraganset Bay with a body in the trunk.

I bought two more Volvos while in high school, a 122S and a P1800, both with the idea that I could restore them, but both were totally rotten and ended up at Gold’s Junkyard. I wound up replacing the 144 with a ’71 Volvo 142E, a car that I had seen being driven around town and I was shocked to see it in the junkyard while I was rooting around for parts. All the flat black brick needed was a clutch, and Old man Gold sold me the car for 150 bucks. It had the high compression engine with Bosch D-jet injection and crazy wide tires on welded rims. What a score!

It was another car that ran a straight pipe for a time, but on the opposite coast. I once got chased by Pacific Grove police down California highway 68, too far behind me to be aware that I was being pursued. “You’re lucky I’m not throwing your ass in jail”, he snarled at me, once I slowed down and pulled over.

A car with a hundred stories, as we navigated the Jim Russell Racing School’s Mechanics Training program at Laguna Seca. Stories for another day.