BEFORE YOU BEGIN READING THIS, I WAS REALLY DRUNK AND EMOTIONAL FOR THE FIRST POST!! Its also being copy and pasted over from Turbobricks. So yeah.
So where to begin, i've been thinking of this moment for the better part of 7 years, for 7 years i have lurked these forums, scoured the car sales websites, kept my ear to the ground and suffered the fate of unfortunate circumstance. I kind of want to tear into what I've finally got parked in my carport but i know turbobricks doesn't mind a good story or two and it wouldn't feel right showing my car without showing a bit of me, so bare with me as i start on a bit of a story and build to what will be something genuinely special to me. If you don't want that just look at the pictures and wait for the bricks of text to stop.
So here i go; my name is Seth and im a 24 year old Australian, i have lived anything but a normal life over the past for 24 years but i can safely say the past 7 years have been the most important. 7 years ago i was 17 and desperately trying to find an interesting, old, turbo car that could throw some wind up the Holden VL Commodore's skirt which is when i stumbled across website by sheer chance.
Since then i have been avid that i would one day own a Volvo that would leave its mark by my side, over the coming months i gained a girlfriend that quickly became my first love, it was a dream of ours that i would drive her around in my first Volvo. In the pursuit of money and security for our dreams i turned to the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) and became an Aircraft Technician. Recruit training straightened my back and made my instructors laugh as i told them i was working hard for a girl and a Volvo, over the coming months i began Initial Employment Training (taking a 3 year theory course and compressing it into 1) which took its stressful toll.
I lost the girl but with a last promise (which i will honor on August 1st this year) i kept the dream of the Volvo and kept on working, my car license was at this time eluding me as i began to spiral into a destructive path.
Come May 2009 i finally stand in front of my workhorse, a fighter jet by the name F/A-18 Hornet which would sooner see me bleed sweat as it moved my up into the middle of nowhere (aka a place called Tindal in the Northern Territory).
I spent the next 4 years with my head down working my fingers beyond their limits, my work regaining my focus and allowing me purchase 2 cars, the first one being a 2006 Holden Rodeo 4WD. Her name is Susan and she has been the greatest asset to me proving her worth time and time again as the go anywhere and do anything truck i needed. Not long after came a track car (which funnily has not seen the track yet...) my 1993 R33 GTS-T Skyline named Lucy, she is currently aching for some parts to be installed and to hit the racetrack very soon.
But through all of it, through every step of the way (which i will openly admit, was very hard for me) i kept on wishing and waiting, i wanted that Volvo and i wanted it so badly whenever i saw 2:40 or 2:42 on a clock i would smile. Everyone who knows me knows i wanted a Volvo, my family always kept their eyes out for one for me, my friends would tease me but i would just give it back to them however i could and have a laugh.
And then it happened. Absolutely and totally out of no-where on a Tuesday comes a remark from a passerby that an old Volvo is for sale in Darwin, it took me 10 minutes of searching before i had found it listed online and i was scrambling for the phone.
It wasn't long before i had called the owner and decided on me getting to see it that Saturday, it just so happened to align with Powercruise which some friends where going to and gave me an excuse to bring Susan and the car trailer. But the next few days i was very nervous wreck, would it sell before i got to see it, would it be a rust bucket, etc etc. I was on edge all the way up to Darwin and after some drag racing, beer and mucking about the meet was re-organized to Sunday morning.
Finally it was time to have a look at her, her slightly faded paint on the roof, her "no rust" showing around her rear window and front right quarter panel, her very good condition interior and her engine that fired up first time.
A conversation ensued, long pauses where had, eyes where avoided, then hands where shaken as i dashed back to get the car trailer. The deal had finally been done.
Up until this point (the photo above) the reality of the situation hadn't hit me, but on my way to the track to see my mates before i rushed home i was hit by it. Glancing into my rear view mirror i saw MY 1979 242GT Volvo on my car trailer, then i suddenly felt my face become wet as a wave of emotion hit me.
It was strange, could this car i now owned, this car i waited 7 years for, this car that had long been part of my dreams, this silver prancing moose, could it really mean so much to me that i could barely manage a sentence to my mum when i called her to let her know, could it make me choke up even now..
Yes, yes it really could.
I have no idea if anyone has ever felt this way about a volvo, or any other car for that matter, but i know that now i have her, i will never let her go. I would rather die then lose that which has taken me so long to finally drive around the block with the dumbest grin on my face, and a tear in my eye.
I know it might sound really really stupid, but this is me and this is my Volvo.
Welcome to my build thread. There is going to be a lot of learning and some very stupid mistakes im sure, but i am on the path to making this Volvo the one of my dreams and nothing is going to stop me.
