OK, so I made this little animation with the intention of doing something with it eventually (I'm a Flash programmer by trade), but apparently, it's not going to happen anytime soon. So, in the hopes that it makes somebody happy, here you go:

So where's the front bumper? Erm… my car doesn't have one at the moment, so why should this one?

So I decided to go for a ride today.

It's been a busy summer, and I've been ignoring my 1800 lately: After getting it safely set up in a garage of its own, I've done little more than look at it in the past three months. Never before has the 1800 had such a long period of dormancy, and I was afraid if I didn't give her a little exercise, she might get sluggish on me.

Apparently, I was right. After a rough start, things started to smooth out, and eventually she was purring as usual while I tooled about town. To give the ride even more purpose, I stopped by a plumbing supply place in town and finally bought the hot water shutoff valve I've been promising myself I'd install to keep the heater from burning me out of the cab this summer. I picked up a few other toys for the garage, too, and eventually made my way home.

It was upon my return that the trouble struck: Apparently, one of the spring latches that holds the distributor cap in place decided to give up the ghost just as I turned into the garage. Suddenly, the car was dead.

When I opened the hood, I somehow missed the vision of the cockeyed distributor — but my eyes rested upon the ignition coil, complete with its missing high-tension line. As the distributor had been batted away by the rotor, it had managed to rip the ignition wire straight out of the coil.

So tomorrow's task: New coil (the ceramic lip surrounding the plug was also broken in the fray), new cap and new rotor. And now I also finally have an excuse to install the Crane Fireball electronic ignition module I purchased several months ago.

In the mean time, the stop valve is also in place. Now if I could just get the car started again to test it…

Sad followup to this article can be found here.

It's only taken a year, but I've done it: I can now tell you the exact time of day — simply by looking at the clock in my 1800′s dashboard!

If this doesn't sound like a feat to you, you obviously haven't ridden in a Volvo 1800 in the past few years. The fact is, a good, running clock is a rarity in the 1800 world, and even those lucky enough to have original, working models will tell you they often lose a few minutes a day even when they're working well.

But mine works now, and it keeps great time, and it only cost me $4 to get it that way. And it still says "Smiths" on it.

How?

Simple. I cheated:

I'm really not after a prize-winning, all-original car; I simply want a great-condition, great-running, comfortable car, so I don't mind taking liberties so long as it doesn't "crap up" the car itself. Removing the original, never-quite-accurate, internals of the clock and replacing them with a more reliable, cheap-but-working mechanism from a $3 alarm clock and a little voltage dampening is — in my book — perfectly acceptable. The clock looks and feels like the old one, it just isn't the same inside.

If anybody wants pictures/schematics, let me know, and I'll post 'em here.

I've been pretty jealous lately of owners of vintage VW Bugs, Cooper Minis, Ford Mustangs and Thunderbirds who once again have their cars in the public spotlight now that their parent companies have re-introduced the brands. Hell, even the Dodge Charger is making a comeback.

Meanwhile, I've also been browsing around the newly redesigned Volvo Heritage Web site, and on a whim, I decided to check out Volvo's Concept Lab, just to see if there was any word on the familiar-looking vehicle unveiled at the 2004 New York Auto Show. And lo and behold! The first thing to catch my eye was the sleek, silver concept car in the second-from-the-right column. The face is familiar, and the copy makes me beam:

Sports coupe aka Retractable Roadster
Inspired by the Volvo p1800, this is a small, retractable-hard-top roadster that doesn't shout cool, but whispers it. It's all style, Volvo style, conceived with a zero-emission drivetrain and dual-hybrid battery pack. One pack is power dense for short-range commuting. The other is an energy dense metal pack for long-range use.

I for one hope this car makes it onto the market. I've noticed Volvo has featured the vintage 1800 in a couple of online ads for its new V50 model, and it almost seems as if they're testing the waters of public opinion to see whether the 1800′s time has indeed come again.

Say it's so, Volvo!

For those who can't run Flash (required on the Volvo site), here's the teaser I'm talking about:

The garage is finally starting to shape up: I made use recently of the built-in workbench left by the previous owner, and this week I added a MIG welder, the Hobart Handler 140 to my arsenal of tools.

Now to just figure out how to use the !@#%$@ thing. Any suggestions?

OK, now it's officially sad: I'm blogging from the garage tonight. I spent most of yesterday putting together and setting up an old PC with a wireless card, and now I can surf the Web for Volvo 1800 info without even leaving the car. Something tells me a "garage cam" is coming soon.

Yeah, my girlfriend is thrilled.

After more than a year of hearing how invaluable Bill Webb's 1980s-era book, Swedish Iron, is for those of us trying to restore an 1800, I finally got my grimy hands on a copy for myself — without spending the absurd money people seem to be paying on eBay for the book these days.

Thanks to the public library system, we can all share a few copies of this rare book, and I have to admit, it's not bad. After all the build-up, however, I guess it was inevitable that I'm disappointed: Despite the cries of "You gotta have it," the book just doesn't have all the answers I could ever want. In fact, it really doesn't have any more information than I've been able to glean from the 1800list and other Web sites over the past year.

But it is an enjoyable and interesting read. And it has great pictures. Mr. Webb did a great job on it.

For 1800 fans, I'd suggest they at least take a look at a borrowed copy (I'd never suggest paying $150 or more for it, though). For anyone wanting good technical information to help them work on their cars, however: I'd stick with the owner's manuals, Volvo service books and parts lists (most of which are available on a single CD these days on eBay).

More importantly, play with your own 1800, and drive, drive drive!