Volvo 240 - An ugly brick and unaccomplished dream?

It is hard to express why I have a special liking for this Swedish brick-like old Volvo 240GL out of all the better and newer Volvo models. To many it is an ugly squarish and boxy vehicle, but it remains an elegant and sweet beauty for me. Let me explain this a little....

As time went by, I tend to think of some of the things that I could not accomplish during my younger days. While I was a kid, my family could not afford to buy me a piano and send me for piano lessons. When my daughter shows keen interest on learning all these musical instruments including violin and guitar, I therefore had never hesitated to buy her the necessary equipment and pay for her lessons. It was an unaccomplished dream for me to own a Volvo when I remember some of my colleagues from richer families owned that vehicle at young age. This feeling of being poor, born unequal and could ill afford anything despite having a professional degree from a reputable university lingered on for many years!

Volvo has a special meaning to me because the local Volvo concessionaire Federal Auto and its Marine and Industrial Engine division was my very first employer after my graduation. I was offered the job as sales engineer together with my coursemate Mr. Thum Wai Choong who stayed on for almost his entire working career with the company. Only when Swedish Motor decided to take back the franchise for all Volvo brands then he started on his own as the Volvo Penta engine agent for the country. Volvo cars then were driven only by top managers of the company and I could only admire and envy at them.

At the time as young engineer, with my meagre starting salary of RM1,100 could only afford a 5 years old Datsun 160J SSS bought from my uncle for RM5,000 to be paid by instalments. In the early 80s, a BMW 3 series was selling at RM36K, a brand new 240 Volvo would fetch a price of about RM18-24K while the normal Ford laser 1.3 or Mazda 323 were selling in the region of less than RM12K. The owner of the double storey house which we rented in PJ SS2 area was offering to sell us the house at RM180K, and now this house might have been valued at over half a million ringgit. At that time, those amounts were simply astronomical figures for a young engineer like me!

When I was having my graduation ceremony, the company was kind enough to lend us the use of a used 240 Volvo for the special occasion. Volvo 240, with the roaring sound of the big 2400 cc engine and its solid and plush look, was a head turner at that time. I felt extremely proud when I doned my graduation gown and drove my family members around with that Volvo to the campus. At that time there were hardly any big cars driven by parents to attend the graduation ceremony! Perhaps all the rich parents with Mercedes Benz had sent their sons and daughters to overseas universities! I received my mechanical engineering degree scroll from then the vice chancellor Lord President Tun Salleh Abas in the afternoon session of the graduation day while the queen or "permaisuri agong" , who was the chancellor of the university was present for the morning session.

Finishing the graduation ceremony and the photo taking session, it was time to return the vehicle to the company. Got out of the gate of UM campus while the gasoline was running extremely low. I had to stop at the very first petrol station at PJ section 17 to fill the tank. It was embarrasing for me to explain to the pump attendant that I only wanted to fill up RM2 to a borrowed big luxurious vehicle just enough to travel back and return it to the company! (Poor man drives a big car!)

It is part of the fun to go through the various topics of the Volvo Club forum and learn more about the vehicle and at the same time findings ways to restore an old vehicle. And I do not know how to describe the satisfaction derived from this restoration work and also the mixed feelings when you finally own your desired car after so many years! It is a little bit late, but it is still a dream finally came through for me, though both the model of the vehicle and the owner are already getting old!