OUR CARS: TORRENS AND HIS VOLVO
TORRENS AND MORLEY CRUISE THE HIGH COUNTRY UNDER A LOW LID… JUST BECAUSE, THAT’S WHY
Join GT and the crew for a road trip in the big Volvo coupe. It’s a love-hate thing...
MORLEY doesn’t rea lise how soul-soothingly relieved I am: I’ve turned the ignition key and my latest acquisition, my pornbrown Volvo 262C Coupe has started ! So what? Well, yesterday morning in my driveway, 550k m north of the southern NSW tow n of Cooma – where we are now – t he bloody t hing didn’t sta rt. Piece of shit.
If you’ve been keeping-up with my regular ‘Our Shed’ scribblings in Unique Cars, you’ll rea lise I’ve bought a few cars recently – Mazda MX-5, Holden Calais, a Commodore wagon or two… and t his Bertone-built choptop Volvo 262C. I’d had a t hing for Volvos ever since my grandfather bought one
as his retirement present when I was a k id in the 1970s. In my late teens, I bought a 1974 Volvo 164E sedan and had vague ideas about stick ing in a turbo Holden si x (I didn’t) and as an adult (?) I’d shoved a f uel-injected Holden 5.0-litre V8 into a Volvo 242GT for a cra z y
magazine project. Somewhere during that time, I became aware of Volvo’s rare, top-line Coupe and t hought, yea h, t hat’d be cool to own one day. To cut a long stor y short, I’d spotted t his one sitt ing forlorn in a yard in Cooma and made an offer. Trucked to my home, I drained t he putrid eightyear-old f uel, changed t he oil and f i lter, f itted f resh spark plugs, a f uel pump, replaced
“I’D HAD A THING FOR VOLVOS EVER SINCE MY GRANDFATHER BOUGHT ONE”
critica l coolant hoses and insta lled brand new t y res.
So I’m a bit embarrassed it didn’t sta r t on t he morning of our road trip. I’d proudly babbled to Morley about how well I’d got t he old Swede running after eight years of f t he road. I’d cruised severa l hundred kays over a few weeks so I was confident it could be driven to Melbourne and back. Suitably impressed, and owing himself a long weekend, Morley had decided to join me after
I told him of my plan, booking a one-way f light for a bromantic road trip. Any way, after tinkering wit h fuel hoses and pumps and f uses and whatever else in my driveway for an hour or t wo, I had the 262C running again and with the t wo of us reclining in its bourgeois leat her-trimmed seats, I slid t he stick into D and pointed t he Volvo’s bluf f nose sout h.
We’re in Cooma because I t hought it’d be f un to show the prev ious owner what I’d done wit h his old car. Cooma is a lso t he sta rt-line for one of Austra lia’s t r uly great drives – the Snow y Mountains Highway. You rea lly can’t accuse one of t hese Volvos of being a great drivers’ car – a lt hough it’s light years a head of most 1970s Aussie ironmonger y - but a trek across t he Snowies sure beats the boredom of the Hume.
My ecstasy at hav ing my Volvo sta r t f irst turn of t he key is magnified by t he fact t hat it’s not as cold in Cooma
as it has been in t he prior few days. Cooma in winter is chilly – it’s t he gateway to the NSW Snowies and its ski-fields–and my Volvo isn’t filled with anti-freeze coolant. Yeah, stupid, but I’d topped it up wit h water when I’d replaced the coolant hoses a few weeks before, with the ambition of draining and flushing the entire cooling system ‘next weekend’. Yeah. I k now...
Our arrival in Cooma was a lso tarnished by: a) t he prev ious owner not being able to come for a look (we’d arrived unannounced on a Saturday afternoon so he was out of tow n) and: b) a lmost not getting accommodation (we’d arrived unannounced on a Saturday afternoon in t he peak of t he sk i season so ever y t hing was booked-out).
With no swags and freezing nights, car-park camping is def initely not an option… but after around 10 phone ca lls, we stumble on t he last motel room available in tow n. With beds booked, Morley and I f ill our bellies with a good Chinese feed and beers, and our minds wit h our usual cra z y ideas. Worried about a frozen radiator, I warm-up t he Volvo’s engine just before going to bed and I set an a larm for 4am to start and quiet ly id le it again.
After brea k fast t he next morning, we wander a few kays out of Cooma to t he world-famous Fly nn’s Wreckers, a yard of severa l thousand cars dating back to t he 1930s. I’ve been t here before but Morley hasn’t, despite his liv ing around here as a teenager. It’s Sunday; t he place is closed. Morley is of course disappointed but it’s an excuse to return, right?
The rest of t he day is a magnificent drive rising from Cooma over open pla ins and terrif ic timbered mountain roads, across the
“WE FILL OUR BELLIES WITH BEER AND OUR MINDS WITH CRAZY IDEAS”
icing-on-t he-ca ke snow y crests of t he Main Range, down the steep western slopes of t he Snowies into Tumut, through Batlow and sout h to t he Corr yong Valley in Victoria. Morley and I have bot h driven t hese t y pes of roads for magazine tests in exotica such as Porsches, FPVs and HSVs over the years but even in my 100kW (maybe?) V6-with-auto Volvo, t he day is a brillia nt blend of corner-car v ing and high-speed cruising. Just before sunset’s gold glow, we arrive a few kays out of Tallangatta to catch-up with Steve and Mark – t wo sa lt-la ke racing mates – and their families and smash into some beers and campoven tucker around a cheer y campfire.
The next day, after a morning coffee and pie, we aim my Ita lian/Swedish chop-top toward the Hume Freeway for a boring drive to Melbourne, interrupted only by our stopping to look at a (shall I tell them ?)’86 Nissan Skyline in some little town. We arrive at Morley’ s local pub in Melbourne’ s southeast in the late afternoon. Over a refreshing Carlton, we reflect on and laugh at what we’d just done in a car t hat
– a lt hough not ridiculous – was a rat her unlikely interstate cruiser.
So, we’d done a great Aussie road trip for little more reason that because it’s there. I reckon all you readers out t here should jump in something cool – who cares what? – and do one ever y once in a while, too. Just do it !
And you know what? I’ve driven my Volvo stacks of times since returning from Melbourne and it’s started ever y time. And no, I don’t k now what the no-start problem was.
Piece of shit !