So many stories out their can attest to the safety of the Volvo, so I thought maybe someone may find mine interesting as well.
Death of a 1976 244 DL (Dad's pride & joy)
On a weekend leave from the Navy back home to visit my girlfriend I
managed to miss my return bus, with the threat of being arrested on
AWOL charges, I begged my father to let me borrow his 240 for the week,
reluctantly he agreed. 18yrs old, 12hrs of driving ahead, I may have
been a little over the speed limit perhaps. Driving through the desert
areas of outback New South Wales, there are a lot of long straight
highways with gentle curves. My lack of concentration most likely
caused the rear tyre to catch the gravel shoulder on the highway,
causing the rear passengers tyre to burst and thrust the car into a
sideways slide on the highway. Quickly the car started to roll over,
inside the cabin all I can remember was the dusty air and the flying
debris. When I eventually landed I was on the other side of the
highway, upside down, facing in the opposite direction. I unfastened my
seat belt opened the door and walked out without a scratch, my only
concerns being what my father was going to do to me when he saw what I
had done to his car! The car following me on the highway stopped to
pick me up, fully expecting to be taking delivery of a corpse I'm
sure...When the police and I returned for the car and to fill the
accident report we counted the indents left in the highway and came to
the conclusion the car had
rolled 8 times in total, at a speed of 130kmph.
Death of a 1974 164 GLE (Mum's Beast)
Now that I had reduced our family to the one owner status by crashing
the 240, Mum?fs 164 was all that was left. The 164 was a GLE which in
those days meant full leather, very inappropriate for the searing heat
of the Australian Mallee, so Dad had fitted sheep skin seat covers (yes
it works!), unfortunately being a tall man this left him with exactly
2inches of head room to the head lining. One hot day the folks jump in
the 164 to head down to our local polling booth to vote. In the country
this was situated in an old church hall, in a dinky town called Fish
Point. To get to Fish Point one had to pass through the Murray/Darling
River levy, which during the winter months was of course flooded. As
Dad approached the levy bank at his usual brisk pace, the pure weight
(and the fact they had recently re-graveled it) the momentum of the
heavy 164 started a sideways slide that
eventually carried them sideways off the levy bank, flipping the car
upside down in mid air and then dropping them from a height of about 4m
directly onto the roof. Mum & Dad got out of the car unhurt, and
with the help of a local farmer and his tractor, they put the 164 back
onto her wheels, started her up and drove her home (after voting of
course). When Dad sat in the car after it had returned home the roof
had moved exactly 2 inches as now the roof lining was touching his
head. Volvo tough!
I'm now older and wiser!, and have owned a multitude of rice rockets,
but now when I'm considering my future with a family in it, Volvo's are
never far from my mind, having saved my parents & my life. I'm now
the proud owner of 2 850's, one for the wife and one for me! So go
ahead call me a bloody Volvo driver, it's like a badge of honor for me!
Mark
Japan/Australia
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