Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Importing a Swedish Unicorn: The Wild Ride to a Volvo 480

Transcript

Importing a Swedish Unicorn: The Wild Ride to a Volvo 480 · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
• 0:04
  but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
• 0:08
  want to share our stories with you.
• 0:10
  Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
• 0:13
  together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
• 0:17
  through our podcast, Brake Fix.
• 0:22
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here, and filling in for Brad tonight is
• 0:26
  my special guest co host, Crutch.
• 0:29
  Hi everyone.
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  Luxury, sophistication, simplicity, and above all, safety.
• 0:35
  Those are the adjectives you might use to describe our feature vehicle tonight.
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  Mike, what are you on about?
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  What else?
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  Volvos.
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  Excuse me, what?
• 0:45
  What if I told you Volvo made a hot hatch?
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  A Volvo only known to a few as the 480.
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  And what's with us tonight to unpack this mystery car are my friends Emily and Nate.
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  Oh, a pleasure to meet you both.
• 0:58
  Welcome to Brake Fix, Emily and Nate.
• 1:01
  Thanks for having us.
• 1:02
  Hi Eric.
• 1:02
  Hi Mike.
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  Alright, so let's get into this.
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  Let's talk about your vehicle history.
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  Let's drive to this Volvo.
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  Let's not run straight for it yet.
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  So tell us a little bit about your vehicle history.
• 1:14
  It took quite a while for me to become kind of a car head.
• 1:19
  So in high school, my parents had an old 1985 Toyota Tercel hatchback.
• 1:27
  I'm sorry.
• 1:28
  Baby blue.
• 1:29
  Uh, it was a really crappy car, but it was six shift.
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  So I learned, learned on a six shift, which was nice.
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  All my friends used to joke that it was, uh, the poke mobile.
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  Cause it's a big, like tall boxy thing.
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  And the poke vehicles are always like these big boxy bulletproof glass things.
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  And they would joke about that.
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  So I had that and then one day going to high school, the, uh, the front
• 1:52
  axle broke, um, and, uh, we're, we're very accustomed to that around here.
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  Um, and so the next car I got after that was a, oh goodness, it
• 2:04
  probably was a 1993 Ford Escort.
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  Wagon hatchback thing, like the, the teal green Ford Escorts.
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  It's a very, uh, common color.
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  If you're familiar with that genre of the Ford Escort.
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  So that was good car.
• 2:22
  And then going off to college and needed my own car and not just one
• 2:25
  that I was borrowing from my parents.
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  I ended up getting a 1990 Acura Legend.
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  Which is pretty cool.
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  Uh, V6 also standard transmission.
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  Those cars are very sought after these days.
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  Cause there aren't very many of them left.
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  Yeah.
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  I wish, I wish I still had it.
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  Um, it was nice driving it home from work one day on 95 South
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  and the timing belt went, Oh, so that, that kind of died a death.
• 2:53
  After that, I had a really crappy Mazda protege.
• 3:00
  I'm starting, I'm starting to sense a theme here.
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  So my early, my early car history was basically any car that's like
• 3:06
  2, 000 or less that I can just drive into the ground until it dies.
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  And that pretty much describes a lot of them.
• 3:13
  The protege was interesting in that at some point in my ownership, this was
• 3:18
  also, again, before I got into maintenance and taking care of cars on my own.
• 3:23
  Protege, you see a pretty good gas mileage, about 30 miles per gallon.
• 3:26
  At some point, what I know now is the water pump started failing and I started
• 3:31
  losing coolant through the water bump.
• 3:34
  And it kept getting worse and worse.
• 3:37
  And at some point I was getting 30 miles per gallon of like water that I
• 3:41
  would go out to the car, put a gallon of water in the car, drive to work, I'd
• 3:47
  have to have another jug in the trunk.
• 3:51
  To top up to get home.
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  And then at some point it just got so bad it was like falling out
• 3:56
  as quick as I was pouring it in.
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  Then I had a, uh, Volkswagen VR6 Passat.
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  I think it was a 90, 95.
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  The one that has no grill.
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  Yeah, um, it was a really cool car, but I only owned it for seven days.
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  I, I bought it.
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  You are all in Maryland.
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  So, you know, the Maryland safety inspection process, which is
• 4:21
  kind of rigorous and nitpicky.
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  No, it's not.
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  So, so I, I, I looked at all the nitpicky things that they
• 4:28
  were going to catch me on.
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  I ended up, this is where I started to get a bit into cars.
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  I ended up going to, uh, Crazy Rays when they were still called Crazy Rays.
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  Out in Hawkins point one.
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  So I got some parts, was on my way home to go shower before going off to work.
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  And I was going over the key bridge there, I guess on 695 a, uh, a waste
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  management garbage truck, uh, on the crest of the bridge had just blown out
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  its drive shaft and it was sitting there in the middle of the road in front of me.
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  And I didn't see it until I came up over the crest.
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  And there was a car on my left and a K Rail and the water on the right.
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  So I drove right over it, uh, and it caused the airbags to go off and
• 5:14
  it sheared part of the oil pan off and, uh, basically totaled the car.
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  So that was fun.
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  Um, but that's kind of where my story with cheap cars ends because of
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  the accident with waste management.
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  They were at fault.
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  There was an insurance settlement, which gave me, I think I paid about
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  1400 for the Passats, and then they gave me about 3000 for the car,
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  and then 5000 pain and suffering.
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  So I had a decent chunk of money to get a car, and here's where I start
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  getting into weird Swedish stuff, aside from like Swedish metal.
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  You bought a Saab.
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  I bought a Saab.
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  God, how did I know?
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  I grew up in New England, uh, in New Hampshire.
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  My parents, uh, were still in New Hampshire at the time I was,
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  I was down here in Maryland.
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  So Saabs were very, were very popular up in New England.
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  I heard you get your driver's license and keys to a Saab in the same day.
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  I think they also do a moose test or something.
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  They like crash a, crash a Saab into a moose or something.
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  And as Crutch mentioned, Swedish and Volvos are notoriously safety minded.
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  So yeah, I got a Saab 9 5.
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  Unfortunately it was GM era.
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  It was a 2003 Saab 9 5 ARC.
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  So it was the V6 and it was, it was a turbo, but it was like super underpowered.
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  Low boost.
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  It was a giant like beast of a, I think old GM engine that they threw in there
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  that had no, no room in the engine bay.
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  That car, I got it with like 100, 000 miles on it.
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  It, it lasted pretty well.
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  Um, I put like another hundred thousand on it, but it always
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  had like weird electronic issues.
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  Like it wouldn't want to start up every once in a while.
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  One point I hit a deer in it being a sob.
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  It survived the deer hit pretty well, but there, there must've been like a hairline
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  crack in the radiator that the insurance company never caught when they, they, they
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  replaced like the headlight and things.
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  So you were back to a gallon of water every day.
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  So you were used to this.
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  Yeah.
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  So I had a friend who was more interested in cars and, uh, had more history than
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  I had, and he and I talked and we're like, yeah, we should try to fix it.
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  Let's try to replace the radiator.
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  Which, on a normal car, replacing a radiator is pretty simple.
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  On this Saab, it was a nightmare.
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  The front grille, uh, area has this big metal lip that comes up over it.
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  And the, the radiator's tucked way up under there.
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  And then there's the intake manifold, and like some turbo
• 7:57
  pipes and stuff all in the way.
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  So you have to like disassemble half of the front of the engine to be able
• 8:02
  to get the radiator to be able to pull it towards the engine and up and out.
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  It was, it was a disaster.
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  It took two days, but I did, I did get it done.
• 8:10
  That was interesting.
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  Um, and that, that was kind of my real first foray into doing
• 8:14
  anything other than like an oil change, uh, or, or brakes on a car.
• 8:18
  Let's pause there as Emily has been patiently waiting, and I hear
• 8:22
  that you have a history, uh, your family history of being petrolheads.
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  So let's, let's talk about that and unpack a little bit.
• 8:30
  Oh, geez.
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  You've been talking to my mom way too much.
• 8:34
  Yes, I have.
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  So my parents are both retired Navy and they are very much into muscle cars.
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  So I've been around muscle cars for a while.
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  Um, my mom loves them.
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  My dad loves them.
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  Like American muscle has been like what I was.
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  kind of born and raised with, which is really strange.
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  So my very first car was a 96 Isuzu Rodeo and it was black and it was
• 9:01
  lifted and had mudding tires on it.
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  It was, It was a very redneck country, which was fabulous.
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  I mean, like if you come from an American muscle car family,
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  you have to have redneck country cars as well, but I loved it.
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  It was a wonderful car.
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  It was a stick shift.
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  So I learned how to drive stick.
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  I actually learned how to drive stick in my mom's.
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  Little tiny blue Nissan truck.
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  And I still remember her yelling at me, don't squish the shampoo
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  bottle when you shift because we had just come back from the hair salon.
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  So I loved that car.
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  I was not working on cars myself at that time.
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  I still remember my dad writing in like paint pen on the battery like
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  make sure you're putting water in the battery so it runs and like this is
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  the positive and this is the negative.
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  I also changed the spark plugs on that, like myself once, that
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  was an accomplishment for me.
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  I did take it to a place that does oil changes.
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  And being really young and very naive at the time, they were like, Oh, well, you
• 9:59
  have to change your transmission fluid.
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  We have to change all this stuff.
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  I'm like, okay.
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  Cause I just had gotten the car.
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  I didn't know that much about it.
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  They ended up draining all of the oil out of the engine and not putting it back in.
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  So I was on my way to college on 50 headed to two.
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  Cause I was going to Anne Arundel community college at the time
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  and the entire engine decided to weld itself together on the
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  bridge during rush hour traffic.
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  And then, After that ensued like a four week battle over my poor rodeo
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  about who's going to get to do work on it because I had it towed to my shop
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  and then that the oil place decided to have it towed overnight to theirs.
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  And I had it towed back and we went back and forth for a while.
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  Eventually I got a new clutch, I got a new transmission.
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  I got a lot of new stuff and it worked out really great.
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  And then I made a really dumb decision to trade it in.
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  So my significant other at the time could get a new car.
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  And then I inherited my parents Mitsubishi Diamante, which was a 2001, which are
• 11:02
  lovely cars, unless you ever have to change the brakes or the rotors on them.
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  And if you do, you have to do it every six months because they're
• 11:11
  crap and it's very expensive.
• 11:14
  So I eventually got rid of that car because it was just too much.
• 11:17
  The value of the car wasn't in it for every time I had to
• 11:20
  get new brakes and new rotors.
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  After that, I borrowed a car from someone.
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  It was a horrible little tiny white car, but it drove.
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  I actually happened to take it to work one day when my house had flooded,
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  so I saved the car from a flood.
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  After that, I got a 2003 Volkswagen Passat, which at the time I didn't know
• 11:44
  had significant electrical failures.
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  It's German.
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  Remember, young, naive, I'm still kind of young and naive with cars.
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  Well, you're talking to people that the three of us own Volkswagens.
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  So we know the Germans have electrical problems.
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  We just don't.
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  It's a given if the check engine light is not on, there is a problem.
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  It's burned out.
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  Well, I took it to a German mechanic who was like, You
• 12:14
  have a problem with your ECU.
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  It needs to be replaced, but it might not be that.
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  It might be this other thing.
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  And I'm like, well, I don't have that kind of money right now.
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  I'll just get a new car.
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  And as I was on my way to go get the new car in Virginia that I already had
• 12:31
  a loan for, it was just for this car.
• 12:33
  The entire power on the vehicle failed on 4.
• 12:37
  95 and I was able to get it off onto an exit ramp and it was like
• 12:41
  95 degrees outside and I couldn't get the windows to go down.
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  It was a very bad experience, so I had to get my parents to get a vehicle, tow
• 12:49
  that one to a junkyard, get rid of the title, and then figure out how to go
• 12:52
  buy the car that I was supposed to get.
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  So I ended up getting a 2016 Hyundai Accent because it was
• 12:58
  affordable, it was super cheap.
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  And it had a undisclosed front end collision, which I'm pretty sure
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  my, my current facade has the same.
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  Cause there's overspray all over the place in the front end of that car.
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  Well, so it wasn't the overspray that gave it away.
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  It was the inside wheel liner was missing.
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  So I was like, Oh, that's a little weird.
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  And then I went to replace it.
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  And then I found a tire rub.
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  And then over time I've started to notice other parts.
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  Problems we actually just did the brakes and the rotors on it and find out the
• 13:30
  rotors were warped not horribly But bad enough that it would you could feel it
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  pulse when you were braking So I still drive that car Because I was gonna say
• 13:39
  that the indicator for me would have been the white bumper and hood and the rest
• 13:42
  of the car was fuchsia But you know, hey, whatever No, it's all the same color.
• 13:47
  They did a good job painting it.
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  But that's, that's kind of my car history.
• 13:50
  I still like American muscle cars.
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  My parents have a GTO, and my dad used to have a Catalina.
• 13:56
  Um, I took the Catalina to prom, actually, when I was in high school, so.
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  A convertible Catalina.
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  A convertible Catalina.
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  That thing drove like a glorious boat.
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  It was wonderful.
• 14:06
  But what our listeners may not know is you're a blogger for Garage Riot,
• 14:11
  which we'll talk about in a little bit.
• 14:12
  So you, I think you're being a little bit modest in terms
• 14:15
  of your car aficionado status.
• 14:18
  I think you're more of like a secret clandestine car enthusiast, right?
• 14:23
  So Emily, we mentioned earlier that you blog for Garage Riot and we recently
• 14:28
  established a partnership with them.
• 14:29
  And so in my understanding, you've been with them for a very long time and I
• 14:34
  hear your member number is quite low.
• 14:36
  So I wanted to get a perspective from you on what it's like, what
• 14:39
  it's about and why you joined.
• 14:41
  Yeah, so I actually joined GarageRide, it was our first time at the Vintage.
• 14:46
  They usually have like a pre Vintage party, and they, it was Donovan
• 14:52
  and one of the other guys, Andy.
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  They had a booth, and nobody was going up to them, and I had just
• 14:57
  come off of a major recruiting trip.
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  I was still very friendly and outgoing with people.
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  I approached them and they were like, we're giving away stuff.
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  I'm like, Oh, you mean you're just going to give it to me?
• 15:07
  No, you have to enter and join online.
• 15:09
  So I ended up joining online.
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  So I was trying to get into cars at the time.
• 15:15
  We were still dating and like, I started hanging out in, um, Garage Riot.
• 15:21
  It was a small social media platform for car enthusiasts.
• 15:25
  And there was like a couple of members.
• 15:27
  I think there were less than 20 at the time that I had joined.
• 15:30
  It was nice because I got to start reading articles about cars.
• 15:35
  Like I started learning about cars, learning about Formula One racing.
• 15:39
  There was a lot of cultural aspects to it.
• 15:41
  of car ownership.
• 15:42
  Some of the stuff that I've talked to Donovan and the rest of the folks on
• 15:45
  the channel about is like women in cars and like that aspect of the industry.
• 15:50
  And what does that look like?
• 15:51
  And so they, they're good at pulling in articles.
• 15:53
  There's quite a few female members within Garage Riot that talk about
• 15:57
  their experience with cars and some of the stuff that they do.
• 15:59
  Some of them work on them.
• 16:00
  Some of them just like staring at them and driving them,
• 16:02
  which is totally cool as well.
• 16:05
  But it's a community of car enthusiasts, people that either.
• 16:08
  Just buy cars and take them to shops and get the fixed or do the work themselves.
• 16:13
  And think of it like not necessarily Facebook for car people, but more
• 16:16
  like the Facebook and any other social media platform for them.
• 16:20
  And they've got a presence on a couple of other sites, but they allow, uh, members
• 16:25
  to write articles and share them, have photo galleries, engaging discussions.
• 16:29
  There's vendors on there as well.
• 16:32
  So if you're looking for coupons, they have a nice hookup with vendors.
• 16:35
  I'll post funds for a couple of those sites.
• 16:38
  It's a good community.
• 16:39
  Uh, the folks on there are very friendly.
• 16:41
  They're very open.
• 16:42
  They ask questions, they're engaging.
• 16:44
  We post bad videos of car crashes.
• 16:47
  It's very welcoming.
• 16:49
  They're doing a lot of changes to the site.
• 16:50
  So I had talked to Donovan and company, uh, about a year and a half ago.
• 16:55
  It feels like about a potential new project that they could embark on.
• 16:58
  So I'm hoping.
• 16:59
  Sometimes soon that they will have it.
• 17:01
  That should make, uh, managing your mods to your cars a lot easier, but they've
• 17:06
  got a bunch of coming changes and it's.
• 17:08
  It's a great community to be a part of.
• 17:10
  Very cool.
• 17:10
  And we've enjoyed the time that we've been spending with the team from Garage Riot.
• 17:14
  So we're looking forward to expanding that partnership and doing some
• 17:17
  crossover episodes with them as well.
• 17:19
  So that's also a discussion, but I think we've now gotten to the point
• 17:22
  where we need to talk about this mystery Volvo that, you know, two
• 17:26
  people on this planet know about, and we're talking to them right now.
• 17:30
  So how do we get to this Volvo 480?
• 17:33
  When did this happen and how did it happen and why?
• 17:36
  Why?
• 17:36
  Um, well, I'll start.
• 17:38
  I have the luxury of working in a place that allows me to do travel and learn
• 17:44
  about new technology that's going on.
• 17:46
  So I had the opportunity to go to a conference overseas and he decided to.
• 17:52
  Tag along and go explore the Swedish countryside while I was in Denmark.
• 17:58
  Let's be fair.
• 17:59
  He had spent probably about two months before this trip, researching Volvo for
• 18:03
  eighties and reminding me every single day, like I've always wanted a Volvo.
• 18:07
  Wait, wait.
• 18:09
  So let's unpack that.
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:11
  How did you find the thing in the first place?
• 18:13
  Because, I mean, when Crutch brought it to my attention, I was like, Wait, what?
• 18:18
  Excuse me?
• 18:19
  It's a hatchback?
• 18:20
  I mean, you think hatchback Volvo, and you're thinking, You know, C 30.
• 18:24
  Right?
• 18:24
  And that's pretty modern, which they kind of style it after
• 18:27
  a a couple of Italian cars.
• 18:28
  That's the front end of the S 40, stuff like that.
• 18:30
  There's certain Volvos that people know.
• 18:32
  You know the shit Brown 800 series from the eighties, you know, diesel two
• 18:36
  forties, you know, those kinds of things.
• 18:38
  Turbo.
• 18:38
  Turbo bricks.
• 18:39
  Yeah.
• 18:40
  The eight 50 TUR turbo.
• 18:41
  Turbo bricks.
• 18:41
  Yeah.
• 18:41
  The turbo bricks.
• 18:42
  The eight 50 sedans.
• 18:43
  The V seventies XC nineties.
• 18:45
  You know, everybody knows these cars.
• 18:47
  And then obviously if you're an old schooler like I am
• 18:49
  and you like classic cars.
• 18:51
  The P 1800 is like the car, it is the Volvo, right?
• 18:55
  And I happen to be a fan of the C 70 and there's a whole backstory
• 18:58
  with Audi on that one, but we'll save that for another time.
• 19:01
  But the four 80, it's not something that you go, you know, when you're talking
• 19:04
  about cars with your friends over a beer, you go, Hey, the four, what?
• 19:09
  It's not a car that comes up in conversation.
• 19:12
  So how do we get there?
• 19:14
  So, uh, so certainly I'm kind of a quirky person.
• 19:17
  I mean, I've got, I've got no, no.
• 19:20
  No drains and things like that.
• 19:21
  So I've, I've always had somewhat quirky tastes to rewind a little bit.
• 19:25
  After my horrible experience working on a Saab, I was interested
• 19:29
  in, in working more on cars.
• 19:31
  So I'm like, I need a fun car to, to, to learn on my requirements
• 19:35
  where it needed to be cheap.
• 19:37
  Like under a thousand bucks.
• 19:38
  'cause I didn't have much money.
• 19:39
  It needed to be 20 years old or older.
• 19:41
  So it would be exempt from like Maryland safety and inspection stuff.
• 19:46
  Uh, so it could qualify as a historic car and it needed to be kind of simple.
• 19:49
  So no, no, OBD two, no computers, none of that.
• 19:53
  So I actually ended up finding a Volvo, Amazon for 750 bucks in Catonsville
• 19:59
  that didn't run, that I bought.
• 20:01
  And then, uh, got trailered to my house.
• 20:04
  We still have it.
• 20:05
  And has it ever run?
• 20:06
  It has run.
• 20:07
  Well, the engine has run.
• 20:08
  It has not moved.
• 20:09
  It has moved on its own power at some, at one point.
• 20:12
  But it did not stop on its own power.
• 20:16
  And then that's where I got stuck.
• 20:17
  Cause like, as I dove into the brakes, I found a bunch of rust and then the
• 20:21
  rear brakes were drum brakes and trying to pop the rear drum brake off when I
• 20:26
  popped it off, it cracked the hub and it was just one thing after another.
• 20:30
  And like, they don't sell parts for some of these things.
• 20:32
  So like finding replacement parts became.
• 20:35
  Problematic.
• 20:36
  And so instead of replacing the drum, I found a whole nother rear axle, but
• 20:40
  that's a, that's a whole nother story, but getting into the old Volvo Amazons,
• 20:43
  I started getting that appreciation for cars like the P1800, because I came across
• 20:47
  those after I got the Volvo, Volvo Amazon.
• 20:50
  Um, and was researching more of the history of Volvo's around that time.
• 20:54
  I was actually on a work trip in Germany at one point, and I was walking around
• 21:01
  the town and came across it, a white 480 in Germany there, and I'm like, Oh,
• 21:06
  that's a really cool looking 80s style, like straight lines and everything.
• 21:12
  And I remembered it at that point in time.
• 21:14
  And when Emily and I were going to Denmark and I'm like, okay, well, I
• 21:19
  should look for cool cars in the area.
• 21:21
  While, while I'm in Denmark on vacation, there was no cool cars.
• 21:24
  It was, I should look for a Volvo for 80 while we're on vacation, but wait, let
• 21:29
  me look at it before we go on vacation.
• 21:31
  It was always in the back of my mind as a cool car that was never sold in the US.
• 21:35
  Slightly, slightly obsessed.
• 21:39
  Only, only a little.
• 21:40
  What do you think about this one, honey?
• 21:41
  Does this look good?
• 21:42
  What about this one?
• 21:43
  I don't know.
• 21:44
  I still like this one.
• 21:46
  That was almost every day for two months.
• 21:49
  There had to have been a conversation in there that goes,
• 21:52
  Ooh, look, it's rare in this color.
• 21:54
  No, no, the rarity was not a thing.
• 21:56
  It was about whether or not the.
• 21:58
  Finish was good.
• 21:59
  How the interior look, did it have the original parts on it?
• 22:03
  Um, was the interior 1980s enough?
• 22:06
  I think we had that conversation as well.
• 22:09
  Do they have like pastel stripes in the seats on some of them?
• 22:12
  Yeah, mine has like, it's, it's like a velour cloth interior.
• 22:16
  It reminds you of a Greyhound bus.
• 22:18
  With like rainbow, rainbow like stripes.
• 22:21
  Greyhound bus.
• 22:22
  You know, you just, you just put a thought in my head.
• 22:24
  You know, when you say, is it eighties enough?
• 22:27
  I mean, you went all the way to Denmark to find this car when you could have
• 22:31
  probably gone down to a used car lot in B.
• 22:33
  C.
• 22:34
  and picked yourself up an IROC Camaro, which screams 1984, right?
• 22:40
  He has the wrong hair.
• 22:43
  So unlike Emily, I don't have any sort of love for American muscle cars.
• 22:48
  My parents were not car heads, so I didn't get anything from, I didn't
• 22:52
  inherit any of that from them.
• 22:54
  I've always just had, like, European cars.
• 22:56
  And 80s Aeroth is not a muscle car.
• 22:58
  It's a Malaysia Aeroth.
• 22:59
  It's not a muscle car.
• 23:00
  It's just, it's just a car.
• 23:04
  I guess maybe the clarification is I've never really liked American cars.
• 23:08
  All right.
• 23:09
  This one's special too.
• 23:10
  So for our listeners out there, here we are, picture yourself.
• 23:14
  Denmark 2000 something, right?
• 23:16
  I feel 18.
• 23:18
  I feel like we're having a golden girls moment here, but what people
• 23:21
  don't realize Volvo has changed hands over the years, right?
• 23:24
  It's original ownership being built based in Sweden, et cetera.
• 23:27
  Ford bought them.
• 23:28
  Now they're on by Tata.
• 23:29
  They've changed hands a couple of times in between there, but a lot of cars were
• 23:32
  built in Sweden for the general EU market.
• 23:36
  Except for the 480, which was built in Holland and is comprised of a
• 23:40
  lot of French parts, which has its own issues and in its own right.
• 23:45
  So here we are, we're lusting after this 480.
• 23:47
  You're in Denmark and black is best, which I've, I've seen pictures of this car.
• 23:53
  So how do you get it back?
• 23:54
  So I have done a lot of research.
• 23:56
  I found one online looking at all the European car sites.
• 24:00
  And I arranged to meet this guy who was selling it.
• 24:03
  He owned a, a small little classic car shop in Sweden.
• 24:08
  So it was about two hours away from Denmark.
• 24:10
  So she went off to her conference in the morning.
• 24:12
  I get on a train.
• 24:13
  I go up to the Across the water and go to a small little town up there, then
• 24:20
  have to get on a bus to get to the car shop and then have to walk about
• 24:25
  half a mile, but eventually get there.
• 24:27
  And this guy's got this really eclectic.
• 24:30
  Collection of old European cars.
• 24:32
  He's got an old Mercedes Benz.
• 24:34
  He's got a Renault, like four CV.
• 24:37
  He's got a Morris or an Austin minor 1100 or something like that.
• 24:43
  He's got an old BMW and then he's got this Volvo 480 turbo.
• 24:47
  He didn't speak very much English, but he had a friend who did.
• 24:50
  Uh, so he called his friend over.
• 24:52
  His friend drove over and then his friend and I got in the car, went for
• 24:56
  a test drive, drove it around for uh, 20 minutes or so, brought it back.
• 25:00
  He had a lift in his shop, so I was able to actually get it up
• 25:02
  on a lift to take a look at the underside of the car, which was nice.
• 25:05
  Check out the quality of the condition of rust and things like that.
• 25:09
  Are those bodies galvanized?
• 25:11
  Are you, are you have to worry about rust a lot on those?
• 25:14
  I, I think so.
• 25:15
  I think I need to worry about rust.
• 25:17
  Okay.
• 25:18
  Especially being a Swedish car and, and having snow and stuff up there.
• 25:21
  It checked out and the, the price was pretty good.
• 25:23
  It was about, it was only about 4, 000 American, uh, after, after the You
• 25:29
  are breaking that budget, aren't you?
• 25:32
  But there was a few problems.
• 25:33
  So I was there in May of 2018.
• 25:38
  Yeah.
• 25:39
  In Sweden, yet the car was produced in November of 1993.
• 25:48
  And so it wasn't yet 25 years old to be able to be imported based
• 25:53
  on the 25 year D O T import loss.
• 25:56
  And that's at the tail end of the four eighties production run.
• 25:59
  If I remember correctly, so this was manufactured November,
• 26:03
  1993, I was there in May.
• 26:06
  So it wasn't 25 years old until November.
• 26:09
  Until November.
• 26:10
  So billed in 93.
• 26:11
  Was it sold as a 94?
• 26:13
  No, it was sold as a 93.
• 26:14
  Okay.
• 26:15
  But the problem is the DOT laws for the 25 year rule are based on the
• 26:19
  production date, not the model year.
• 26:20
  So I agreed to buy it, and thankfully, uh, the, the seller said he could
• 26:25
  just hold onto it for, for six months.
• 26:27
  So I agreed to buy it, uh, we signed a contract, I wired him the money
• 26:32
  through a cool app called TransferWise, which does kind of foreign currency
• 26:36
  conversion and easy money transfers.
• 26:39
  And then we came home and had to figure out how to get in here.
• 26:41
  And then I had six months to try to figure out how the hell am I going to get
• 26:45
  a car that I bought in Sweden to the U.
• 26:48
  S.
• 26:49
  because I've never done that before.
• 26:50
  And like none of this process is really all that well documented anywhere.
• 26:54
  We spent probably like four months researching like vehicle import services.
• 27:00
  We got to a point where we were talking about, well, maybe we can buy another
• 27:04
  car and put them both in a container and have, have the entire container
• 27:08
  come over, how many cars can we fit in a container to bring it over to get
• 27:12
  the most value when you say cars, you mean another four 80 for spare parts.
• 27:17
  That was actually in my mind because like getting, getting parts is awful.
• 27:23
  And like, it'd be nice to have, like, a parts car I could just
• 27:25
  steal off of if I needed it.
• 27:26
  Or my own, but okay.
• 27:28
  No, no.
• 27:30
  We'll get to that, though.
• 27:32
  So it would be nice to have one to, like, keep.
• 27:35
  Original and period.
• 27:36
  Correct.
• 27:37
  And then one to like play with modify and play with, but so we spent like
• 27:42
  four months trying to find places and the quotes that we were getting were
• 27:46
  ridiculously astronomical and he's a part of, and I think I'm a part of the group
• 27:50
  now, um, uh, BMW group on Facebook, right?
• 27:54
  It was BMW and it was the vintage.
• 27:57
  Yeah.
• 27:57
  The vintage.
• 27:58
  Um, and he just decided to push in the question, how do I get it to the state?
• 28:03
  And like, what were all the responses?
• 28:05
  It was like one person.
• 28:06
  This is the person that you go to.
• 28:07
  Like half a dozen or more people all replied with the same person.
• 28:12
  So they've all, they've all used this guy in the past.
• 28:15
  Hans Gruber.
• 28:16
  Yeah.
• 28:17
  We know a guy.
• 28:19
  It was, it was essentially that we know a guy, everybody knew a guy.
• 28:22
  They've all in the BMW community used him.
• 28:25
  Um, well known in, uh, importing like E, uh, E28s.
• 28:29
  And things like that.
• 28:30
  And, uh, so I contacted that guy and he seemed, uh, really
• 28:35
  reasonable to work with.
• 28:36
  Uh, it was a little touch and go shady at the beginning.
• 28:40
  It was shady the whole way.
• 28:42
  It was super shady because like between contacting him and like
• 28:46
  occasionally hearing back from him, there was no conversation of costs.
• 28:51
  We were just moving full on full steam ahead with getting this car.
• 28:56
  No conversation about costs.
• 28:57
  Well, I, I brought up costs in every single interaction with him.
• 29:01
  It's just, he never answered those questions.
• 29:04
  You are in good Hans with Hans, right?
• 29:09
  But like, he's like, yeah, I can do that.
• 29:11
  And like, he sent a guy with a tow truck all the way.
• 29:14
  So this guy, this importer base in Netherlands, the car is out in Sweden.
• 29:19
  He sent a guy with a tow truck all the way out to Sweden to
• 29:23
  pick up the car on my behalf.
• 29:25
  To tow truck it like a thousand kilometers back to the Netherlands.
• 29:28
  The battery was dead when they got it.
• 29:30
  He replaced the battery for me.
• 29:32
  He did all the cleaning and everything you need to do to ship a car.
• 29:35
  Sent pictures of the whole thing.
• 29:37
  Sent pictures of all the stuff.
• 29:39
  Right, right before I was about to get on a ship he emailed me the bill
• 29:42
  which was Thankfully, very reasonable.
• 29:45
  I was, I was worried because up to that point he had gone
• 29:48
  all the way to get my car.
• 29:50
  He had the car in his possession.
• 29:51
  He had all the paperwork about the car.
• 29:53
  We were starting to worry whether or not there would be white powder in the
• 29:56
  vehicle when we got it out of port or if he would try to hold the car ransom.
• 30:00
  Yeah.
• 30:00
  Um, no, he was completely professional at the end.
• 30:03
  Very reasonable in terms of costs.
• 30:04
  And then, uh, uh, he, he put it on a boat in the Netherlands.
• 30:08
  It shipped to the Baltimore port.
• 30:10
  I think it shipped at the end of November or beginning of December of 2018.
• 30:15
  And it showed up like the day before new year's took about a month.
• 30:18
  When I got the actual notification from the shipping company in the U
• 30:21
  S that it was ready for pickup, then you're faced with another challenge.
• 30:25
  So you've got this car now in the port of Baltimore, and it's a car that
• 30:28
  won't be in Maryland's DMV database.
• 30:31
  Because it was not a car that was built nor manufactured for the U S.
• 30:34
  So where do you go from here?
• 30:36
  I'm birdie.
• 30:38
  Like Nate said, the process for bringing in cars like this are, is very much
• 30:42
  undocumented, not really much of anywhere.
• 30:44
  And there, even when you go through, like we got it to the
• 30:48
  port, there's no documentation for how you get it out of port.
• 30:51
  Really.
• 30:51
  You kind of have to like call around and ask questions.
• 30:54
  So there's another guy that knows a guy.
• 30:57
  Yeah.
• 30:57
  Yeah.
• 30:58
  I mean, another guy that was, that was interesting.
• 31:00
  To get it off of port, you can't just drive on there with a normal tow truck or,
• 31:05
  uh, with a trailer or anything like that.
• 31:07
  Now, in my benefit, I did have a, uh, a CAT card being
• 31:11
  a former government employee.
• 31:12
  So I, I was able to get on base with my CAT card.
• 31:15
  Otherwise you need to be escorted while you're on the port grounds.
• 31:20
  Otherwise, you need to be escorted by somebody with a TWIC card, a
• 31:24
  Transport Worker Identification Card.
• 31:26
  Uh, normal civilians, normal people can't just drive onto the port by themselves.
• 31:31
  They have to be escorted, except in my case, uh, having a government ID.
• 31:36
  The shipping company just said, go to trailer number whatever.
• 31:40
  And so I, I find that trailer on the, on the port property, I drive up there,
• 31:45
  apparently I was supposed to have been wearing like a high vis vest because
• 31:48
  they have all these signs that say you must wear a high vis vest and I wasn't.
• 31:53
  Your hair wasn't enough?
• 31:55
  Maybe that's how I got away with it, I don't know.
• 31:57
  But I went up there, I had, the shipper had emailed me copies of
• 32:02
  the import certification and some of those forms that were necessary.
• 32:06
  I showed them to the folks at the trailer and they said, give me five
• 32:10
  minutes, I'll have somebody drive it out.
• 32:11
  And then they drove the car out of their, uh, of their lots.
• 32:15
  And, and then I had the car, but then I needed to get the car home, uh,
• 32:19
  cause I can't just drive it cause it's got no plates or anything like that.
• 32:23
  And not just any tow truck driver can just drive onto the, onto the
• 32:26
  port property and, and tow it home.
• 32:29
  So I needed somebody with a TWIC license who was also a tow driver.
• 32:34
  Thankfully, one of the, uh, companies that I called had
• 32:37
  somebody who didn't work for them.
• 32:39
  Who was a friend of theirs who had a twit card who happened to have a trailer.
• 32:43
  So that guy eventually showed up like an hour later.
• 32:46
  We got it loaded and it came home and we drove it down the driveway and it
• 32:51
  sat for what almost a month, two weeks to a month before we, we got the paper.
• 32:56
  No, I, I had the paperwork right away.
• 32:58
  I think like the next day or later that week we went to the MVA.
• 33:01
  So later that week or the next day comment is we had to spend several hours
• 33:07
  translating Swedish to English and finding the right parts of the form that Maryland
• 33:14
  would care about because you can't just go to the NBA like you said with this car
• 33:18
  that's not going to be in their records.
• 33:20
  You have to, you basically have to do their job for them and just make it as
• 33:24
  easy as possible so they could just like type in or punch in the right information.
• 33:28
  So we, it was certainly like government bureaucracy at its finest.
• 33:32
  Um, so leading up to all this, we had done a lot of research about the process.
• 33:37
  So I felt like I knew the process fairly well about what the steps
• 33:41
  were and what I needed to do.
• 33:42
  The Maryland import process says that if you have a title or registration.
• 33:49
  That's in another foreign language.
• 33:50
  Oh yeah.
• 33:51
  That you need to have it trans.
• 33:53
  You can't just translate it on your own.
• 33:55
  Yeah.
• 33:55
  You need to have it translated by the embassy.
• 33:58
  By an embassy from the country of origin.
• 34:01
  So I call the Swedish Embassy in DC . I'm like, Hey, I have a car
• 34:08
  title that's from Sweden that I would like you toran, uh, translate for me.
• 34:13
  And like on official, like embassy letterhead or whatever.
• 34:17
  Is they like, it needed to be official from the embassy and
• 34:20
  they're like, no, we don't do that.
• 34:23
  Call somebody else.
• 34:23
  We don't, we don't do that.
• 34:25
  So I was stuck with, okay, what the heck?
• 34:27
  Maryland law says you got to do this.
• 34:29
  And then the embassy says, no, they don't do that.
• 34:32
  So we essentially did our best.
• 34:34
  We went to Google translate, looked at all the fields and
• 34:37
  said, oh, that's, that's odometer.
• 34:39
  That's like make and model.
• 34:41
  And we kind of like translated it ourselves on a separate document.
• 34:45
  To be clear, we both have, like, some exposure to foreign languages, so,
• 34:49
  like, it was slightly easier in that we, we can understand based off of
• 34:52
  other languages we know what they were getting at, but it was still painful.
• 34:56
  We're talking about, like, Small text fields with mobile phones trying to scan
• 35:03
  and figure out what it's actually saying.
• 35:05
  But eventually we got it, and he had all the paperwork, and he went to the MBA, and
• 35:09
  you were there, what, almost two hours?
• 35:11
  Two or three hours.
• 35:12
  Two or three hours walking through the person at the desk.
• 35:16
  This is where I need you to put this in your database, and this is the
• 35:19
  next form that you need to fill out, and I put them in order for you.
• 35:23
  The wait time wasn't three hours of telling them that it was the normal,
• 35:27
  like two and a half hour wait at the MBA.
• 35:30
  Plus 30 minutes of doing the actual thing.
• 35:32
  But of course they don't get this often.
• 35:35
  They don't get somebody who walks in with a weird Volvo with a
• 35:39
  weird title that's in Swedish.
• 35:41
  But they have a desk devoted to it.
• 35:43
  I've been to the Lombardi MBA.
• 35:44
  I've seen the, the, the.
• 35:45
  The gray market title desk that's like off in the corner.
• 35:50
  Yeah, but he had all the boxes checked.
• 35:53
  Swedish.
• 35:54
  Imported.
• 35:55
  Historic tags.
• 35:56
  That haircut.
• 35:57
  I mean, it was just like, they didn't know what to do with them.
• 36:02
  So I think because I went in there kind of knowledgeable of the process, kind
• 36:08
  of like determined and sure of myself, I really felt like I knew way more about
• 36:13
  the Maryland import process than the poor lady behind the counter did because
• 36:17
  she kept telling me like, Oh, well, we.
• 36:19
  Uh, we need a title and in my case, I didn't actually have a title
• 36:24
  because Sweden doesn't have titles.
• 36:25
  They just have registration certificates.
• 36:28
  And so there's somewhere in the Maryland policies that says if you have a
• 36:32
  foreign vehicle and it doesn't have a title Then you need registration
• 36:36
  and something else and so or bill of sale and registration certificate or
• 36:39
  something like that So I had those I knew the law I was able to explain to
• 36:43
  her what she needed to do and we were able to eventually get through it all.
• 36:48
  And she, she didn't trip up on the, uh, not having a official translation
• 36:53
  from the Swedish embassy thing.
• 36:57
  So she was very patient with me walking through my Google translated version
• 37:01
  of the registration certificate.
• 37:03
  Did you also find it a challenge to get this card insured?
• 37:06
  So are you going through normal insurance?
• 37:07
  Are you doing like a Hagerty specialty car insurance?
• 37:10
  What do you, what do you have to do there for what we would
• 37:12
  consider a gray market car?
• 37:13
  Yeah.
• 37:14
  So I, I didn't even try to go through normal insurance cause I didn't know of
• 37:19
  one, how they would handle it at all.
• 37:22
  And two, like certainly if they were to handle it, I don't think they would give
• 37:25
  it much value in terms of replacement or, or damage or repair or anything like that.
• 37:30
  So given the number of cars that we have at the time, uh, I've looked into Hagerty.
• 37:35
  Um, and we're going, we, we have Hagerty now and I have the E30 on
• 37:40
  the Hagerty plan as well as the 480.
• 37:43
  Nice.
• 37:43
  So I've got those two with Hagerty and I've got the rest of the cars that we kind
• 37:47
  of more daily drive on, on just normal.
• 37:50
  Yeah, it worked out well.
• 37:51
  We got it licensed and well, we got it tagged.
• 37:54
  But yeah, three, three nervous hours sitting at the MVA wondering if I'm going
• 37:58
  to be able to leave with Maryland plates.
• 38:00
  And a Maryland title, and I did, and it was, it was a
• 38:04
  very happy, successful thing.
• 38:06
  Until he brought it home and decided to try to put plates on
• 38:09
  it, and then found out that the U.
• 38:10
  S.
• 38:11
  tags are ugly on European cars, and we clearly needed to have a
• 38:16
  European style plate on our car.
• 38:19
  I really like in Europe how, um, you can get American sized plates if
• 38:25
  you're in Europe for American cars.
• 38:28
  Like they have kind of that dual size thing, but we don't do that in the U.
• 38:32
  S.
• 38:32
  So, so I have to ask, did you do what all the Stansbros do and buy the stretched
• 38:39
  out Maryland tag that has the Maryland tag printed on it, but it's changed?
• 38:44
  Into the European format.
• 38:46
  About it.
• 38:46
  I, I, I really considered that.
• 38:49
  But decided if you were going to spend the money on a Euro
• 38:52
  sized tag, we should make it fun.
• 38:55
  Which is why it doesn't have that.
• 38:57
  Yeah, so we, we ended up going to a few car shows with the stupid
• 39:01
  Maryland tags on the front, uh, poking out like a And took them off.
• 39:05
  Like a, like a buck tooth on, on like a Beaver or something.
• 39:08
  That's exactly what it looks like.
• 39:09
  Like a BMW M4.
• 39:12
  And then I decided what I really need is like show plates.
• 39:15
  So I ended up getting some fake Euro plates that say, uh,
• 39:19
  daft punk or daft punk, sorry.
• 39:22
  Oh crap.
• 39:23
  You've ruined it.
• 39:24
  So, so I got some fake European plates that say daft punk because,
• 39:29
  uh, as you mentioned about the, a bit about the history 80, it was
• 39:34
  built in Holland in the Netherlands.
• 39:36
  At what was previously the old DAF factory.
• 39:40
  We actually talked about DAF vans on another episode.
• 39:43
  They were actually quite familiar.
• 39:45
  So it's kind of this Volvo car that's built in the Netherlands.
• 39:50
  So it's kind of a punk.
• 39:51
  And then Daft Punk being a French band.
• 39:53
  Kind of gives it's ties to it's French roots.
• 39:58
  with the Renault engine and the Renault drivetrain.
• 40:01
  We've talked about some of your early challenges with the car.
• 40:04
  And you kind of dabbled a little bit here in the tech specs.
• 40:06
  Let's deeper dive into the tech specs of the car, because most people aren't
• 40:10
  going to know really what it is.
• 40:12
  And you've alluded to some of it, but let's explore that a little bit.
• 40:15
  It was a, uh, unique car for Volvo in a, in a few regards, it was.
• 40:20
  It's their first front wheel drive car.
• 40:23
  It's a front wheel drive 1.
• 40:26
  7 liter inline four turbo, in my case, it's a 1993.
• 40:31
  Transverse, correct?
• 40:34
  Yes.
• 40:35
  It's in there sideways.
• 40:36
  Yep.
• 40:36
  And, uh, it's, it's a fairly light car.
• 40:41
  It weighs about 2200 pounds.
• 40:42
  The 1.
• 40:43
  7 liter turbo gets about 120 horsepower at the crank.
• 40:47
  Stock, uh, 129 pound feet of torque.
• 40:49
  So rumor was that when it was being developed, cause it's kind of this weird
• 40:54
  mishmash of Volvo and Renault parts, they actually supposedly sent the engine
• 41:00
  and the car to Porsche to do tuning.
• 41:03
  It actually has like a Porsche throttle body on it.
• 41:06
  And supposedly the rumor is that Porsche tuned it up to about 170 horsepower.
• 41:10
  And then when they gave it back to Volvo, Volvo was like, Oh, wait a minute.
• 41:14
  We're, we're kind of a safety family company here.
• 41:17
  Can you detune it a little?
• 41:18
  So that's how it ended up rumor, uh, at least, uh, down at about 120 horsepower.
• 41:23
  But that meant that the engine, uh, and, and boosts and things were capable of
• 41:28
  getting up to that higher horsepower.
• 41:30
  So there's actually, uh, some folks still in the, in the Volvo four 80 community
• 41:35
  that I found on, on Facebook and, and European forums that do modifications of
• 41:39
  the ECU to actually restore some of that original kind of fuel map and things.
• 41:44
  And up the boost.
• 41:45
  Supposedly, that's supposed to give you about 150 horsepower,
• 41:50
  um, at the wheels, but I have not dyno'd it or anything like that.
• 41:54
  And I'm pretty sure my clutch is at its last legs because, uh, when I
• 41:58
  do get high on boost, I can, I can feel and smell the clutch slipping.
• 42:03
  High on boost.
• 42:04
  That's like five pounds at Volvo speed, right?
• 42:09
  I think the stock boost is about seven or eight pounds with the
• 42:16
  modified ECU that I actually have.
• 42:18
  I actually ordered, I got one from one of the folks on one of the forums.
• 42:21
  It goes all the way up to 14.
• 42:23
  Oh, wow.
• 42:24
  And what are we running on workforce?
• 42:26
  Pretty big difference.
• 42:27
  19, 20.
• 42:28
  Yeah, something like that when they're modded, but, you know,
• 42:30
  stock boost on the original KO3s is like eight or nine pounds.
• 42:33
  It's nothing.
• 42:35
  Yeah, so being a fairly light car with that kind of power, it's actually
• 42:39
  a really fun peppy car to drive.
• 42:41
  Nice.
• 42:41
  Well, yeah, and the power to weight ratio is what really comes into play there.
• 42:45
  And that's normal for cars of that era, right?
• 42:47
  They didn't really start getting heavy.
• 42:50
  Until the late nineties, when they started introducing things like pro
• 42:53
  content, a lot more of the airbags and all of these more, you know, advanced
• 42:57
  crush zones and things like that.
• 42:59
  The cars of the eighties and early nineties were still built the old way.
• 43:02
  You know, they're economical, they're super lightweight in comparison.
• 43:06
  That's heavier than a Scirocco, but it's still lighter than an Audi coupe,
• 43:09
  which weighed in at about 2, 400 pounds.
• 43:12
  And it's a much larger car, but all those cars of that era, it's like, man, if you
• 43:15
  were above 2, 500 pounds, it was a tank.
• 43:18
  Yeah.
• 43:18
  Cars, like you said back then, you could see out of them so much more
• 43:22
  easily, like the, the A pillars and everything were smaller, thinner,
• 43:26
  which is great until you roll over.
• 43:29
  Yeah, I think my, my year is actually the last year before they added airbags.
• 43:33
  I think they added airbags in, in 94.
• 43:36
  Which I often have to remind him about whenever we go have
• 43:39
  fun in the country with the 480.
• 43:42
  I mean, you know, our track cars, most of us, for those of us who even keep
• 43:45
  them street legal, the airbags are gone.
• 43:47
  Yeah, for the most part.
• 43:48
  Because, you know, especially the Volkswagens, the stock steering
• 43:51
  wheel is like a ship wheel.
• 43:53
  Well, that and if they were made by Takata, they didn't
• 43:57
  work in the first place.
• 43:58
  So it doesn't really matter.
• 43:59
  Well, then they're Claymores, not airbags.
• 44:03
  So, you know, the 480 styling wise, it's definitely an acquired taste.
• 44:07
  It reminds me of a couple of Dustbuster.
• 44:10
  Well, yeah, it reminds me of a couple of other cars, but I got to give it
• 44:13
  Matt props for having pop up headlights because that is period appropriate.
• 44:17
  You know, you look at some of the design cues, it really still looks pretty modern.
• 44:22
  I like the fact, you know, we have one here in the background.
• 44:25
  It's got that little, you know, kind of weighing up over the hatchback glass.
• 44:28
  And this one in particular has wheels on and whatever.
• 44:31
  It also reminds me of some of the Mitsubishis of the period.
• 44:35
  Like if I look at it with one eye crossed and I'm half drunk, it reminds
• 44:38
  me of the Starion a little bit, like, like a miniature version of it.
• 44:42
  So I can see design cues from other cars, but the question
• 44:45
  is who actually designed it?
• 44:47
  Did Volvo design it or did like Bertone have their, their hands involved?
• 44:51
  Who was involved in designing the, the 480?
• 44:53
  I'm going to kick myself.
• 44:54
  Cause I, I do know the person's name and I can't remember it.
• 44:57
  Um, I believe it was somebody from Volvo.
• 44:59
  I think it's John DeVries.
• 45:01
  Is the stylist who did it back to, uh, the pop up headlights.
• 45:05
  That was, that was another, uh, unique characteristic of
• 45:09
  the 480, especially for Volvo.
• 45:11
  It was the first and only Volvo to ever have pop up headlights.
• 45:16
  And, and the interesting thing about that is they did that to meet
• 45:20
  American safety laws at the time in the eighties, because headlights had
• 45:25
  to be a certain height off the ground.
• 45:27
  And they were planning on actually selling the 480 in the US to compete with all
• 45:30
  the other hatchbacks and hot hatches starting around that time in the late 80s.
• 45:35
  Unfortunately, it turned out that the economy and kind of exchange rate with the
• 45:39
  US didn't work out in Volvo's favor and they scrapped plans to bring it to the US.
• 45:43
  How big is the 480?
• 45:45
  Let's talk about like wheelbase and overall length.
• 45:47
  It's not big.
• 45:48
  It's tiny.
• 45:49
  It's so small.
• 45:51
  It's, it's really small.
• 45:52
  How's it compared to your E30?
• 45:54
  Because E30 is something a lot.
• 45:55
  Exactly.
• 45:56
  It's smaller than the E30.
• 45:57
  It's definitely shorter in length than the E30.
• 46:01
  It's narrower too.
• 46:03
  By a good distance.
• 46:04
  I would say it's narrower by like what?
• 46:06
  Six inches?
• 46:06
  It's not much.
• 46:08
  It's just enough.
• 46:09
  So, so you're saying it's not a car for Brad or I?
• 46:11
  Nope.
• 46:12
  Um.
• 46:12
  I don't know.
• 46:13
  It's actually quite roomy.
• 46:15
  There's a lot of leg room.
• 46:16
  I've been told that it's actually a very good car for tall people.
• 46:20
  It's because of how, how the seats are.
• 46:23
  They're what bucket seats in the front, right?
• 46:25
  They're bucket, yeah.
• 46:26
  It's a two by two.
• 46:27
  And so they're, it is got bucket seats.
• 46:30
  But the way that the seats are positioned is it, it's very
• 46:32
  much that you're very lean back.
• 46:34
  It reminds me of probably closer to like a, a modern race car where you're,
• 46:39
  you're lean back, you're kind of stretched out a little bit, and then,
• 46:42
  so there's a, there's a lot of room and you don't have a lot of the obstructions
• 46:46
  that you get with modern cars.
• 46:48
  Um, like you don't have this big console in the middle taking up a ton of space.
• 46:53
  You don't have a huge armrest in the door.
• 46:56
  The armrest is very narrow.
• 46:57
  There's a lot of good room on the inside of the car.
• 47:00
  The 2 plus 2 layout is really interesting because the back
• 47:04
  seats are also bucket seats.
• 47:06
  And they're really comfortable.
• 47:07
  It's still pretty tight in the back.
• 47:09
  It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a coop, so the back is kind of small, but
• 47:13
  it's, it's much more rear leg room.
• 47:16
  Yeah.
• 47:16
  I, I could comfortably sit back there, probably not for a long, a, a really
• 47:20
  long time, but Doug, Doug Demaro could certainly do his, get in the
• 47:24
  back seat test and probably fits.
• 47:26
  So it begs the question then.
• 47:28
  What's it like to drive?
• 47:30
  I wouldn't know because I'm not allowed to drive it yet.
• 47:33
  You've had it for two years and yet you can't drive it yet.
• 47:36
  Shots fired.
• 47:37
  Shots fired.
• 47:40
  The only car of his, besides the XC90 that I've been allowed to drive was the E30.
• 47:47
  And the first time I drove, that was the first time I drove a stick
• 47:50
  in almost 15 years and we were on a mountain in the dark in a huge fog
• 47:57
  bank while it was, what, raining?
• 47:59
  Uh, it was certainly 80 percent fog.
• 48:02
  I will say you actually blogged about that experience.
• 48:05
  I know you blogged about that one because I've actually read that post.
• 48:09
  Yeah, the photo is scary.
• 48:11
  You have not seen it.
• 48:12
  There's nothing but clouds.
• 48:13
  Is that Skyline Drive?
• 48:14
  That was Skyline Drive.
• 48:16
  Oh, that's a wonderful road.
• 48:18
  You could see their beady little eyes along the side of the road
• 48:20
  waiting to jump out at you.
• 48:22
  Well, I had driven, we had gone down to North Carolina
• 48:26
  and Asheville for the BMW show.
• 48:29
  Vintage.
• 48:29
  Vintage.
• 48:30
  And I had driven all the way down and I had promised her that I'd
• 48:34
  let her drive on the way back.
• 48:35
  And then on the way back, it happened to be super shitty weather.
• 48:41
  We had like almost complete fog.
• 48:43
  But I drove really well.
• 48:45
  And I didn't ruin the clutch.
• 48:47
  That was the first time I learned about engine braking.
• 48:50
  I didn't know that was a thing at the time.
• 48:51
  I was all proud of myself and I still haven't driven the 480 yet.
• 48:54
  I will say the other reason you haven't driven most of Nate's cars
• 48:57
  is cause a lot of them don't move.
• 48:59
  That's true.
• 49:00
  Also true.
• 49:01
  I have probably pushed his cars.
• 49:04
  It was further by myself than I would have driven them.
• 49:08
  But the 480, that's got some fun stories too.
• 49:12
  Well, well, yeah, so go ahead.
• 49:15
  So, oh gosh, where were we?
• 49:17
  We had mentioned the E34, the Crutchet Help Me trailer.
• 49:21
  Right.
• 49:22
  So I had, I had posed the question because I was kind of following
• 49:25
  my, my, my train of thought here.
• 49:27
  What's it like to drive, right?
• 49:29
  That was, that was my question.
• 49:31
  We kind of segued from there, you know, went to New Jersey and back.
• 49:35
  So now we're back.
• 49:36
  So what's the 480 like to drive?
• 49:38
  Fun?
• 49:39
  Of, of all the cars that I currently own, and we haven't gotten through all of them
• 49:43
  yet, but all the cars I currently own, I think the four 80 is actually one of the
• 49:47
  best cars, if not the funnest car to drive because it's just so light and nimble.
• 49:53
  And handles well.
• 49:54
  Handles well.
• 49:55
  Like the steering is, is responsive, really responsive.
• 49:59
  And that would be a car with no nannies and no assist.
• 50:02
  Like you said, it's probably an OBD one car.
• 50:04
  If not, it's a Medtronic car.
• 50:05
  It's somewhere on the border there.
• 50:07
  Yeah, it's, it's, it's Medtronic.
• 50:09
  Okay.
• 50:10
  Um.
• 50:11
  Definitely doesn't have any OBD ports or anything like that.
• 50:13
  It helps the road really well, especially around the corners.
• 50:16
  No ABS, it should have power steering.
• 50:19
  Actually, it does have ABS.
• 50:21
  Really?
• 50:21
  It does have ABS and power steering.
• 50:23
  Oh, nice.
• 50:23
  But no, no airbags, no traction control or anything like that.
• 50:26
  I will say that it drives better now than it did when we got it.
• 50:30
  We've done Chuckle.
• 50:33
  It drove like a boat when we got it.
• 50:35
  To the point where we had it at the compound and we got in,
• 50:39
  he's like, I want you to tell me if you think it's like a boat.
• 50:42
  And we drove down the end of the driveway and hit the brakes.
• 50:45
  I think boat's the wrong analogy.
• 50:47
  I think it was like, is it like an airplane?
• 50:49
  Because when you got on boost, like the front nose would just lift up because
• 50:56
  the front shocks were completely blown.
• 50:58
  And it would just like lift the car up by almost a foot because
• 51:02
  of how, how bad the shocks were.
• 51:04
  So we, we ended up replacing the shocks.
• 51:06
  We ended up putting new springs on it.
• 51:08
  We found, which was a huge surprise because when I went to take the shocks
• 51:13
  off one, I found out how blown they are.
• 51:14
  Cause I could just extend and collapse them by hand.
• 51:17
  Um, as if I was using like a slinky.
• 51:21
  It was like a slinky.
• 51:22
  That's how bad they were.
• 51:23
  What was worse was on the driver's side.
• 51:26
  The spring was like two coils longer than on the passenger side.
• 51:31
  So somebody had gone in there at some point and it also had
• 51:34
  a aftermarket shock in it.
• 51:36
  And replace the shock and spring on the left hand side.
• 51:38
  So, what we think happened is that at some point in its history that it must
• 51:42
  have been in a front end collision because the bumper doesn't quite align correctly.
• 51:47
  And there's been modifications to where the bumper and the nose cone mounts.
• 51:52
  To the vehicle.
• 51:54
  And you can see some slight blending of the paint.
• 51:56
  Yeah, the paint is blended.
• 51:58
  Um, the mounting points for the bumper, one of them is almost
• 52:01
  two inches higher than the other.
• 52:03
  Maybe not too much.
• 52:04
  It's more like an inch.
• 52:05
  It's definitely not right.
• 52:06
  And we've, it looks like somebody has been in there already.
• 52:09
  But for the driver's side, when we were doing all that work,
• 52:12
  we found what the axle was.
• 52:16
  To take the front suspension off, you kind of have to pull the half
• 52:23
  shaft out of the transmission to be able to get enough room to like free
• 52:27
  the, free the suspension components.
• 52:29
  And what I think happened It was probably prior to me when somebody
• 52:34
  did these shenanigans of installing an aftermarket shock on just one
• 52:38
  side of the car and a different size spring on that one side of the car.
• 52:42
  They probably screwed with the, the inner roller bearing that's
• 52:46
  on the inside of that half shaft that goes into the transmission.
• 52:50
  That then is the bearing that that whole axle rides on inside the transmission.
• 52:55
  And they knocked one of the cups off.
• 52:57
  So when I, when I did this, I found out that that cup was actually
• 53:01
  sitting inside and all the bearing needles were sitting inside there.
• 53:05
  Uh, but not all of them.
• 53:06
  It's a tripod axle then.
• 53:07
  The way it's a tripod.
• 53:09
  For most of us, that's a really common part.
• 53:12
  We run down to, you know, advanced auto and go pick one up for, you
• 53:15
  know, 60 bucks and call it a day.
• 53:17
  And then that's another challenge of owning an imported car.
• 53:20
  So where are you getting parts for the 480?
• 53:23
  Yeah.
• 53:23
  So, um, Netherlands, Florida, Florida.
• 53:29
  Yeah.
• 53:29
  So, um, Because, uh, Volvos are us shares a whole bunch of parts with the Renault.
• 53:35
  It's funny you keep saying the Renault, like there's only one in existence,
• 53:39
  so , is there a particular one like the R five or the R 21, or, or, or
• 53:46
  is it It shares a lot of parts with.
• 53:49
  I think the second generation Clio.
• 53:51
  Okay.
• 53:51
  I could see that.
• 53:52
  And yeah, I had done, uh, when we first got the car, like did
• 53:56
  it, took a test drive, found the horrible suspension liftoff problem.
• 54:00
  I did a survey of all the stuff that I wanted to do maintenance on and replace
• 54:04
  and made a big parts order from two or three different places in Europe.
• 54:08
  Scandix is a, uh, a parts company in Germany that makes and remanufactures
• 54:15
  a whole bunch of, uh, Polo and.
• 54:17
  saw car parts.
• 54:19
  So I got some stuff from them.
• 54:20
  And then, um, there's, there's a handful of just big superstore car
• 54:27
  parts places in the, in the, uh, Europe.
• 54:30
  Uh, so like auto, auto dock, I don't know if you're familiar with them.
• 54:34
  Uh, I think I made a big parts order with them and then found, uh, The
• 54:38
  suspension bits that I needed, like the, the strut bearing on the top for
• 54:42
  the front struts, the, the bilstein struts and lowering springs all in,
• 54:47
  um, either the UK or Netherlands.
• 54:50
  I placed a bunch of orders from, from Europe.
• 54:53
  They arrived from three or four different places.
• 54:56
  I did all that work in preparation of going to Radwood.
• 54:59
  And in New Jersey in 2019, so the story of me replacing the front suspension,
• 55:06
  finding all these weird suspension problems that were there, finding this
• 55:10
  inner, inner roller bearing, uh, tripod bearing, uh, on the axle was six days
• 55:17
  before I was supposed to go to Radwood.
• 55:18
  So I'm like, Oh shit, I'm not going to be able to take the 480 to Radwood.
• 55:23
  I've already emailed them and said, Hey, I've got this Volvo 480
• 55:26
  that I want to bring to Radwood.
• 55:27
  Can I get into, uh, Is it royalty?
• 55:30
  There's some like higher tier of Radware where you can bring in special cars and
• 55:35
  pay more money to bring in special cars.
• 55:37
  They were all excited for me to bring the 480 to them.
• 55:40
  And then 6.
• 55:41
  8 for Radware and I found this problem.
• 55:42
  I'm like, oh crap.
• 55:43
  I'm not gonna be able to bring it because I'm not gonna be able to
• 55:45
  get it on the road because I'm not gonna be able to find the part.
• 55:47
  So I spent like a day.
• 55:49
  Doing parts interchange and cross reference search and found that
• 55:53
  somebody on eBay in Florida was like the North American and South American
• 55:59
  distributor and reseller, reseller for Renault parts in kind of this region.
• 56:05
  And he just happened to have one that like cross matched to the Volvo 480.
• 56:09
  So I ordered that and thankfully was able to get the car back
• 56:12
  together and uh, make it to Radwood.
• 56:15
  It was an interesting experience putting that back together.
• 56:18
  We still have part of it.
• 56:19
  It's actually on the key ring, isn't it?
• 56:21
  Yes, I use one of the outer bearing races from that tripod bearing
• 56:27
  as a key ring for the Volvo 480.
• 56:29
  Very cool.
• 56:30
  So other than car shows and whatnot, what have you guys done with the 480?
• 56:34
  Have you done any sorts of, you know, let's say motor sports events with
• 56:38
  maybe done an autocross, maybe a D E.
• 56:40
  I mean, outside of the, you know, the standard cars and coffee,
• 56:42
  maybe some touring, as you guys mentioned, have you done anything?
• 56:45
  That's, that's about it.
• 56:47
  I think he's probably slightly too paranoid about his cars,
• 56:50
  doing some racing stuff with them.
• 56:52
  I mean, like, we, we are very much a house that there are no garage
• 56:55
  queens at all allowed, but I think he's still a little sensitive to
• 56:59
  some of these things, especially for the 480, because it's so hard to get
• 57:03
  parts that if something bad were to happen, we would be in a weird spot.
• 57:07
  spot, trying to get pieces for it to get it back together and get it
• 57:11
  up and running, especially when it's just fun to drive around, like the
• 57:14
  weather here is glorious right now.
• 57:16
  We don't need to have air conditioning so we can drive through the country
• 57:19
  and see all the fall leaves right now.
• 57:21
  We've got all the hills and there's.
• 57:23
  The roads out here are just so nice, and we don't exactly have a lot
• 57:28
  of really good performance cars.
• 57:29
  I think the 480 Turbo is the closest thing that we have to one that could
• 57:33
  potentially do good on a track.
• 57:36
  I think it'd be fun to drive somewhere where you could kind of test it out
• 57:40
  and put it, put it at its limits a bit.
• 57:42
  I don't know if I would do autocross.
• 57:44
  But well, I mean, I always bring up D.
• 57:45
  E.
• 57:46
  And Mike and Brad and I, you know, we're coaches, so you're
• 57:49
  never, you're not out there alone.
• 57:50
  It's not door to door.
• 57:51
  There's no bumping and grinding.
• 57:52
  So it's always a good experience and summit points not very far from us.
• 57:55
  And, you know, it's a true way to really open it up, clear
• 57:58
  out the carbon, as we say.
• 58:00
  Say and what it's made of.
• 58:02
  Right.
• 58:02
  But you know, you're, again, you're not alone.
• 58:04
  You have somebody parroting in your ear what to do and, and you know,
• 58:06
  it's a note, it's a non-contact sport.
• 58:09
  So something to think about and, and for, and, and in terms of cost, you
• 58:13
  know, we talk about this on, on previous episodes, it's cheap and affordable.
• 58:16
  Right?
• 58:16
  It's an easy way to get in.
• 58:18
  I mean, for.
• 58:19
  Five, six hours of track time.
• 58:20
  If you want to use all of it, it's a couple hundred bucks, right?
• 58:23
  Why not?
• 58:24
  It's probably the most fun you're going to have for that kind of money.
• 58:26
  Right.
• 58:27
  And you don't have to put a roll cages and things for those.
• 58:32
  You know, for your E 30, you would need a roll bar.
• 58:35
  Oh, cause it's a convertible.
• 58:36
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:38
  But, and you'd have to pass the broomstick test.
• 58:40
  And just as an aside, we were talking about the track stuff.
• 58:42
  There is so locked in another insurance company, actually one of the largest
• 58:46
  insurance companies, probably in North America, you know, locked in affinity.
• 58:50
  It has a very large reach, but they also have a division called locked in
• 58:53
  motorsports, and they're going to be on a subsequent episode here, uh, in the near
• 58:57
  future and they offer track insurance.
• 58:59
  And it's kind of a, no questions asked full value declared value policy.
• 59:04
  So if you walk up and say, based on my mods, based on this, based on
• 59:07
  rarity, that Volvo is worth 50 grand, they'll insure it for 50 grand.
• 59:11
  And if something happens, they'll cut you a check.
• 59:12
  That's pretty good.
• 59:13
  Yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 59:14
  So it's a X percent deductible, depending on how much you pay.
• 59:17
  10 percent with a minimum deductible of 2, 000.
• 59:20
  So we, I just went through that.
• 59:22
  It's all fresh in my head still.
• 59:24
  But if you guys want to learn more about that, I mean, this is totally an aside.
• 59:28
  It'll, it's going to be on a episode coming up very soon.
• 59:31
  Did you, did you learn that because you had to go through it?
• 59:34
  Actually, actually, one of our members did go through it.
• 59:37
  We wrote an article about it back in 2018, right about the
• 59:39
  time you got your, your Volvo.
• 59:41
  And he went through it with a Mustang that he hadn't had for very long.
• 59:45
  And his significant other ended up having a really good off.
• 59:50
  We'll call it that kiss the cement barrier and crunched up the left front of the
• 59:54
  car and he had track insurance on it.
• 59:55
  They took care of everything.
• 59:56
  It was no questions asked.
• 59:58
  Unlike dealing with a standard insurance company, they're used to
• 1:00:01
  dealing with track incidents and track cars and things like that.
• 1:00:03
  And, you know, if you walked up to John's car today, you
• 1:00:06
  wouldn't know the difference.
• 1:00:08
  Very cool.
• 1:00:08
  Very cool.
• 1:00:09
  So my next question for you guys is, you know, outside of that,
• 1:00:12
  what are the plans for the car?
• 1:00:14
  Because, you know, as we all have these special cars in our garages, there's
• 1:00:18
  like calibers of Like, is it done?
• 1:00:22
  Is it done done?
• 1:00:24
  Or is there just something more on the list to check off?
• 1:00:26
  What's the future?
• 1:00:27
  There's always more, so like So the Volvo Parade came with two interiors.
• 1:00:32
  It came with a leather interior and then it came with that lovely 1980s
• 1:00:36
  pristine, uh, bus fabric interior.
• 1:00:39
  Which, which is what we have in it and you just can't beat that feeling with it.
• 1:00:43
  But the door cards Don't laugh that loudly.
• 1:00:47
  This is a painful experience for us both.
• 1:00:48
  The door cards The original vinyl that covers them is vacuum formed onto
• 1:00:53
  it, which they're very, um, modern cards that are plastic door cards.
• 1:00:59
  Even in BMWs, the cards don't have as significant of a profile.
• 1:01:04
  As the 480 does, it's got some deep pockets in there.
• 1:01:07
  So when they vacuum formed it, the glue over time naturally breaks down.
• 1:01:10
  So you get these bubbles of air and you ruin the form and the shape
• 1:01:14
  of the door card because you've got that pocket underneath it.
• 1:01:18
  Well, on the driver's side, the door was.
• 1:01:20
  really bad to the point of you couldn't use part of where the door handle was.
• 1:01:25
  Like you go to grab the door handle and like, there should be a gap there for you
• 1:01:29
  to wrap around the handle, but the vinyl had come up and you would just hit this
• 1:01:34
  bubble of vinyl every time you check.
• 1:01:36
  So we had made the decision that we did a lot of research.
• 1:01:38
  We watched a bunch of videos, um, that we were going to pull
• 1:01:41
  the vinyl off and put a new vinyl leather look covering on top of it.
• 1:01:47
  So I am a, uh, I do a lot of sewing.
• 1:01:50
  I do a lot of craft work.
• 1:01:51
  I do a lot of building stuff, and I do custom patterning.
• 1:01:54
  So I had created a custom pattern for the door card with nice stitching
• 1:02:00
  detail to piece in that, that high profile that the door had.
• 1:02:05
  But we did not have the.
• 1:02:07
  Expertise in laying down the glue or stretching the material correctly.
• 1:02:12
  Upholstery is hard, especially if you've never done it before
• 1:02:16
  and only watched YouTube videos.
• 1:02:18
  Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  So it was one of those.
• 1:02:20
  So I had, I had it mocked out in muslin and I had it fitted and it, and it
• 1:02:25
  laid well, it was just a matter of the vinyl that we got was a two way.
• 1:02:29
  It was a two way stretch, not a four way.
• 1:02:31
  So two way stretch vinyl means it only moves.
• 1:02:34
  side to side or up and down and not both.
• 1:02:37
  So you have to pay attention to how you're cutting and stitching your pieces
• 1:02:40
  together to make sure that it stretches in the orientation that you want it to.
• 1:02:43
  So I spent all this time making sure that it could stretch and form
• 1:02:46
  to that high profile door card.
• 1:02:48
  And even that with the glue that we got, wasn't enough.
• 1:02:51
  To get it to fit.
• 1:02:52
  We got most of the wrinkles out, but it just, the look wasn't quite right.
• 1:02:57
  It was hell of a lot better than the air bubble that was originally there.
• 1:03:01
  But now that we had pulled the vinyl off of one door card and we had the
• 1:03:04
  other one in place, by the way, this was what, two weeks before Radwood
• 1:03:09
  when we, it was, it was Radwood.
• 1:03:13
  Cause it, yes, it was Radwood.
• 1:03:15
  So it was like two weeks before Radwood where we had found out that
• 1:03:19
  none of this was going to work.
• 1:03:21
  So we ended up pulling the vinyl off of both of the door cards, including the one
• 1:03:24
  that I had made, scrubbing as much of the glue off as we can, and experimenting with
• 1:03:29
  different paint and texture compounds.
• 1:03:31
  So the Volvo does not have vinyl door cards on it.
• 1:03:35
  It looks like it does.
• 1:03:37
  until you touch it.
• 1:03:39
  And it's because this guy with the paint master skills of spray paint
• 1:03:43
  and texturizer, it looks like vinyl.
• 1:03:46
  It's got the texture of vinyl.
• 1:03:48
  As long as you don't touch it, that's the only thing that that
• 1:03:50
  would let you know that it's not it.
• 1:03:52
  So from about a foot away, the door cards look pretty original,
• 1:03:55
  but if you touch them, you'll know that they're not original.
• 1:03:58
  Especially I use like two different types of truck bed liner and then Color match
• 1:04:04
  the spray, spray paint to get the right color to try to match it to the interior.
• 1:04:08
  It's really, really close, but it's not final.
• 1:04:11
  So that's one of the things I'd like to get fixed.
• 1:04:14
  I think the only real way to get it fixed is to actually get
• 1:04:17
  somebody in the Netherlands who has spare door cards to mail me some.
• 1:04:21
  And I've found some people who have some.
• 1:04:23
  We also had it priced out how to do the vacuum form on the door
• 1:04:28
  cards and it was astronomical.
• 1:04:30
  Because it would, it would have been custom for it.
• 1:04:32
  We also looked at pricing up custom up poultry for the door cards.
• 1:04:36
  And that was like way, way, way too much.
• 1:04:38
  Fixing the door cards on the interior is one of the things that we definitely
• 1:04:41
  want to do with the upgraded ECU that I got that updates the fuel
• 1:04:46
  map and ups the boost to 14 PSI have certainly noticed that the clutch
• 1:04:51
  slips when it's really on high boosts.
• 1:04:53
  So, uh, unfortunately Volvo, this is actually, uh, On top of parts being really
• 1:04:59
  hard to find for the 480 because they're never sold here, a lot of the parts
• 1:05:03
  aren't even made anymore because there were never really all that popular cars.
• 1:05:07
  The parts are even hard to find for folks in Europe who have them, of which the
• 1:05:11
  turbo was produced in much fewer numbers than some of the other models of the 480.
• 1:05:16
  Uh, they had a naturally aspirated 1.
• 1:05:18
  7 liter and they also had a 2.
• 1:05:20
  0 liter, uh, also naturally aspirated.
• 1:05:22
  But, uh, so the turbo was produced in fewer numbers.
• 1:05:25
  So there's.
• 1:05:26
  Fewer parts for them.
• 1:05:27
  And it uses a different size flywheel and clutch this, uh, than the other ones.
• 1:05:31
  And they don't make it anymore.
• 1:05:32
  And none of the aftermarket parts suppliers make it.
• 1:05:35
  So I spent a good part of my quarantine time during, uh, during COVID.
• 1:05:41
  cross referencing and researching SACS and SACS parts and Renault parts
• 1:05:47
  and finally finding a part number that I think is going to work as
• 1:05:50
  a replacement uprated clutch that won't, that hopefully won't slip, but
• 1:05:54
  I have no idea if it's going to fit.
• 1:05:56
  So it sounds to me like in this case, And don't take this the wrong way.
• 1:06:02
  It sounds like you're a bit of a purist, right?
• 1:06:03
  Because we come at it from the motor sports world and getting a custom
• 1:06:08
  clutch made is not really a big deal.
• 1:06:10
  You take your stock clutch, you send it out and somebody makes you one.
• 1:06:14
  Like there's companies like center force and Kennedy and a
• 1:06:16
  lot of others that'll do that.
• 1:06:18
  So I guess it depends on your level, but I respect it.
• 1:06:21
  Right.
• 1:06:21
  Because I look at it from the perspective of.
• 1:06:23
  You know, this is a really interesting like concourse car where you want
• 1:06:27
  to keep it period appropriate.
• 1:06:28
  You want to keep it as original as possible.
• 1:06:30
  You want to do all these kinds of things that somebody doesn't
• 1:06:32
  come back and say, wow, you have this other thing in there, but.
• 1:06:35
  For those of us on the other side of the fence for like blow up a clutch,
• 1:06:38
  whatever, we'll get another one.
• 1:06:40
  We'll get one made, you know, that kind of, it's not a big deal.
• 1:06:43
  It's kind of the same with the axles too.
• 1:06:44
  It's like, well, those inner bearings probably the same as a Volkswagen.
• 1:06:48
  It's like, just go swap them from something else.
• 1:06:49
  But, you know, I understand it's part of that.
• 1:06:52
  I don't want to call it the obsession, but it's part of the passion around this car.
• 1:06:55
  And I really.
• 1:06:56
  I really appreciate that.
• 1:06:57
  And I really sympathize with it because I've been through
• 1:06:59
  it with some other cars myself.
• 1:07:01
  I mean, I had an original Audi Quattro and I nerded out on that thing forever.
• 1:07:05
  And I had a coupe Quattro, not a, not a 4, 000, right?
• 1:07:08
  So those cars extremely rare, only 627 and brought to North America,
• 1:07:13
  not just the U S but North America.
• 1:07:15
  So talk about finding rare parts and stuff like that.
• 1:07:18
  But, you know, we've talked about this on other episodes.
• 1:07:21
  We have members in GTM with, uh, We have a Renault R5 turbo too.
• 1:07:25
  We've got some Packards, we've got all these other cars.
• 1:07:27
  And it's like, you know, we talk about scarcity and rarity of parts.
• 1:07:30
  And a lot of people have come to the conclusion that no, you're not going
• 1:07:34
  to find a part for 1927, you know, super eight, you're going to have
• 1:07:38
  to have somebody make it for you.
• 1:07:40
  It's just, it's gotten to that point.
• 1:07:41
  Right.
• 1:07:41
  But, but there's some allowances there.
• 1:07:44
  Right.
• 1:07:44
  And if you are a hardcore concourse person, they they're allowing
• 1:07:48
  that nowadays, and it's stuff that you can't visually see.
• 1:07:51
  But it helps the operation of the vehicle.
• 1:07:53
  Right?
• 1:07:53
  So, but I get it.
• 1:07:54
  It's a struggle overall.
• 1:07:56
  It's super interesting.
• 1:07:57
  It's so unique.
• 1:07:58
  I mean, so by your research, are there any other four eighties in
• 1:08:03
  the United States, or are you kind of in a, in a group by yourself?
• 1:08:07
  I, I know of at least one.
• 1:08:09
  Maybe two.
• 1:08:10
  I think in early days of bring a trailer, there was a white one listed
• 1:08:14
  before they started the auction site on bring a trailer a while back.
• 1:08:17
  That was somewhere down in Florida, but that's all I've ever seen of that one.
• 1:08:21
  And then I did, I did come across somebody on one of the European Volvo
• 1:08:26
  480 forums, who I think is involved with like the Volvo club of America.
• 1:08:32
  Who's out in California who actually has one.
• 1:08:34
  He has a earlier, I think it's an 88.
• 1:08:37
  Naturally aspirated, and I think he was in one of the Volvo Club magazines
• 1:08:43
  with his P1800ES hatchback from the 70s next to the 480 Turbo hatchback.
• 1:08:52
  And so there's some styling cues there shared between the P1800ES.
• 1:08:58
  And the, the four 80 as kind of the, the follow on to that.
• 1:09:02
  And then the C 30 is kind of a follow on to the four 80.
• 1:09:06
  Absolutely.
• 1:09:07
  I could definitely see that.
• 1:09:08
  So I wanna ask, and the C 30 always looked fun, , except for that back.
• 1:09:11
  Except for that big window.
• 1:09:12
  Yeah.
• 1:09:12
  Well that back, that back glass they borrowed from launcher.
• 1:09:15
  But you know, we won't, we'll leave that alone.
• 1:09:17
  But any rate, because the, the Y 10 or the ypsilon dhi as they called it in Italian,
• 1:09:21
  the, uh, they had that same rear trunk.
• 1:09:24
  And obviously those rear lights are from the SUV.
• 1:09:26
  I mean, that's kind of, it had a weird backend to it.
• 1:09:28
  It's very strange, but I wanted to ask, you know, because this is
• 1:09:32
  still kind of fresh for you guys.
• 1:09:33
  I mean, we're talking 2018 timeframe.
• 1:09:36
  We're only two years, let's call it three.
• 1:09:38
  As we, as we move into 21, would you go back and do it all over again?
• 1:09:43
  Or would you slap yourself silly if you had a time machine?
• 1:09:46
  I would go back and do it all over again in a heartbeat and
• 1:09:48
  maybe buy two, two more of them.
• 1:09:51
  I was going to say for the 480, yes, we would do it all over again.
• 1:09:54
  Probably definitely get a second one if we could, maybe three depending.
• 1:10:01
  Like, we were in a weird situation where we had like one extra
• 1:10:04
  parking space at the compound so we could have, Had the extra car.
• 1:10:08
  If we were in a better situation, we would have had more spots, probably
• 1:10:11
  could have bought over more cars.
• 1:10:12
  We looked at other cars.
• 1:10:14
  We talked about buying more than just the 480, but that was
• 1:10:17
  the one that we brought back.
• 1:10:19
  At one point you even asked me if I had anything I wanted to add to your
• 1:10:21
  trailer or add to your shipment.
• 1:10:23
  We did, yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Wow.
• 1:10:25
  So I think we covered a lot of interesting stuff here.
• 1:10:28
  This is a very unique car.
• 1:10:30
  I think you guys are in a really unique position, but it's also
• 1:10:32
  interesting to hear all these things.
• 1:10:34
  And as I said, kind of in the pre show, there's so many different
• 1:10:38
  types of car enthusiasts out there.
• 1:10:40
  And there's so many different stories that just aren't shared.
• 1:10:43
  And when you walk by a car like yours at a car show, you look at it and you go, huh?
• 1:10:47
  What's that?
• 1:10:48
  But you know, you got to take that extra step to get the story out.
• 1:10:52
  So I thank you guys so much.
• 1:10:53
  I can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing this with everybody
• 1:10:57
  and getting us to know a little bit more about something as unique as the Volvo
• 1:11:01
  480, and for all of our listeners out there, we're going to post some pictures
• 1:11:05
  and extra information about the car, specifically Nate's car on our website.
• 1:11:09
  So gtmotorsports.
• 1:11:11
  org, and we'll probably repost that on Garage Riot.
• 1:11:14
  And that way you guys can go.
• 1:11:16
  See the visuals as you're going through this particular episode.
• 1:11:19
  So again, Nate and Emily, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:11:23
  Thanks for having us.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah.
• 1:11:24
  Thanks.
• 1:11:24
  Thanks for letting me talk about the 480.
• 1:11:26
  Um, it's really fun, uh, taking it out and letting people, uh, see it as, as
• 1:11:31
  we've talked about, it's a bit quirky and most people just kind of pass it by.
• 1:11:35
  But for that one person who's like a weird Volvo head.
• 1:11:38
  that sees it and is able to see it in the U.
• 1:11:41
  S.
• 1:11:41
  It's like it makes me so happy.
• 1:11:43
  So I'm gonna I'm gonna put this out there and I know it's gonna make Emily mad,
• 1:11:47
  but I gotta get a chance to drive it.
• 1:11:49
  That way can write a test drive article on it.
• 1:11:50
  What do you think?
• 1:11:51
  I that would be fine.
• 1:11:54
  I will eventually get to drive it.
• 1:11:56
  Let's be clear one way or another, it's going to happen.
• 1:11:59
  It's going to have to move across the parking lot or move across something.
• 1:12:02
  And he's going to be in a boot or unable to do it.
• 1:12:06
  You'll spike his drink, injured myself working on the Mercedes again.
• 1:12:09
  Well, on that note, thank you again.
• 1:12:12
  Yeah, thanks.
• 1:12:13
  Thanks
• 1:12:19
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about gtm
• 1:12:21
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:12:25
  gtmotorsports.
• 1:12:25
  org You can also find us on instagram at grand tory motorsports Also, if you
• 1:12:30
  want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or
• 1:12:34
  text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 1:12:41
  org.
• 1:12:41
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:12:43
  Hey listeners, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:12:45
  Do you like what you've seen, heard, and read?
• 1:12:48
  Great, so do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it, but please remember, we're
• 1:12:52
  fueled by volunteers and remain a no annual fee organization, but we still need
• 1:12:56
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• 1:13:01
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• 1:13:03
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• 1:13:06
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• 1:13:09
  And click in the top right corner on the support and donate
• 1:13:13
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