My Love Affair With Volvo Is Strong

Written by Anika Henrikson

I had the pleasure of writing a story for the forthcoming Man Issue. It is about cars.

The story also involves some men...but mostly, cars.

Now, those of you who know me are aware that I don't know a single thing about cars, save how to start one. So it might seem hypocritical that someone who doesn't understand cars is the one writing about cars. But that was the point. Any car guy could get geared up (ha) while talking with other car guys. The trick was getting a girl to understand just what it is about cars that has so many dudes so worked up.

I came to see it as a challenge! After all, I've owned cars. I've driven cars. I've even added motor oil to my car!

My first car was a blue 1990 Volvo 240 DL with a sunroof (and a CD player). I bought it for $2,400 in 2003 when I was 19. That car was a workhorse.

It had racked up over 100,000 miles before I bought it, but the thing kept plugging along. In addition to squiring me back and forth from the University of Oregon campus to my apartment five times a week, it made countless trips up to Portland to see bands at The Crystal Ballroom, to scour the used books at Powell's. Heck, it even got locked in an over-night garage off Burnside for roughly two hours (long story). It made dozens of beach trips to Florence and Newport just so I could eat clam chowder at Moe's, imbibe on Rogue Brewery's best, pick up some sterling silver jewelry and incense-soaked Beatles' T-shirts at Jamba, and stock up on Oregon sand in the cuffs of my jeans. It never asked for anything in return.

I knew I'd be a Volvo owner for life. When I moved to Bakersfield in 2007, I came to the sad realization that I'd need a car with an air conditioning unit that, you know, worked and a gear shift that didn't stick.

I think my mom was afraid that my car (and, to a certain extent, her daughter) would explode into flames while driving on some Southern California freeway during summer. She also feared that my gear shift would lock up on some stretch of deserted road and that I'd “meet” some unsavory characters. Those were not such big problems in Oregon. In Eugene, if your car was to stall on the side of any road, you'd simply have to deal with, at worst, a few hippies who'd try to help. They'd offer up some handmade patchouli-scented candles and perhaps remind you that you're too dependent on a piece of metal that depletes the earth's natural resources. Though, at best, you'd find yourself being rescued by some Pacific Northwest hipsters (they are a different breed from those down here), who would seem somewhat apathetic to your plight while you sat in the backseat of their even more vintage Volvo listening to unreleased Elliot Smith singles as they drove you back into town.

So, fearful that I may end up careening off a six-lane California highway in a massive fireball, or find myself on some abandoned stretch of highway that just so happens to be the hunting grounds of the Zodiac killer (he was never found, people!), I bought a champagne-colored 2000 Volvo S70.

I had to buy another Volvo, because, I had to. Yet that car, while gorgeous, had so many mechanical problems during the two years that I owned it, the guys at Independent Volvo knew me by my first name. First it was the heater coil, then it was a crack in the coolant tank. But man could that baby go. With only the slightest tap on the accelerator, that car would roar to life. It had guts. But I would have continued pouring money into it if some kid hadn't broadsided me while running a red light and totaled my second dream car. When I see an S70 drive past me on the road, I miss my car. I think about getting a new Volvo on a daily basis. Why? Because I love Volvos. But I digress.

I really tried to figure out why our guys dreamed about their cars; why they sat out in the garage and listened to the engine roar. It seemed so ludicrous to me that someone would spend countless hours out in a garage adoring an old car. Why someone would yearn to one day own a particular car; why they would want to own a car that they'd never drive.

I discovered that the reasoning was quite simple. And it comes from a feeling that is not entirely foreign from my own attitude about Volvos. In fact, it's almost entirely the same. Volvos connect me to a time in my life when I was living in a glorious, albeit rainy, bubble in Eugene, Oregon. I was having interesting conversations with interesting people in dark college bars; I was discovering that men in thick-framed black glasses were way hotter than those without; I was able to drink a bottle of cheap wine at one in the morning while arguing over the profoundness of ABBA's “S.O.S” with fellow English majors and still wake up at 6 a.m. (not hungover, I might add) for a comparative lit class. That Volvo was a part of who I was at that time and who I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

Now, if someone can put me in touch with anyone selling a Volvo, I would be forever grateful.

Added bonus! While working on the story, I discovered a few more things about cars including the fact that a “Flathead Merc” is not a type of screwdriver. But you'll have to read up when the issue hits newsstands and coffee tables later this week.

This blog was written while listening to Megalithic Symphony by AWOLNATION. The tracks “Burn It Down,” “Kill Your Heroes,” “Jump On My Shoulders,” “Guilty, Filthy Soul,” and “Sail” were listened to extensively. Listen. Enjoy. Do it.