Good European Cars

Back in the '90s, my dad became a fan of Volvos, so each member of the family drove a used one. There may also have been a bonus car occupying the curb out in front of the house. One of my dad's friends remarked, "Man, Jim, how many Volvos are you going to buy?" My dad in the same spirit muttered back, "A whole fleet of 'em."

One brown Volvo in particular features heavily in my memory. My dad ferried us from home to the campus where I was in college and my siblings in high school. It seemed to drive fine, but the speedometer and maybe one or two other non-crucial elements didn't work. Whether or not these items were actually important depended on one's point of view, I suppose. While thankful to have had a convenient daily ride and a family vehicle, I remember running low on gas a couple times and having it buck and shudder on the way to classes. One afternoon, it was raining, and as I waited for my dad in the vehicle, thinking the rain pattering on the roof should feel cozy, it rather seemed damp in that beige interior.

My dad came home from a long road trip with the Volvo now missing another feature. Seems he'd fallen asleep at the wheel, veered off the road, and awakened to manzanita bushes whipping by the windows. One of these had torn off the passenger side mirror.

My sister maneuvered the freeways of L.A. with one particularly old Volvo while attending Biola. She sometimes had to dart across multiple lanes to get to her exit. She had to drive with the heater on so the engine wouldn't overheat.

My younger brother recently related a brown Volvo story that he said made him laugh harder than he's laughed at anything else in his life. He was still living at home and went with my dad to pick up the Volvo at the mechanic's. The exchange with the mechanic went something like this:

"How's the car?"

"Good, good--everything's fine."

"No issues, then?"

"No, no big issues. But there was one little thing."

"What's that?"

"It's the horn."

"You can't get the horn to work?"

"No, no. [Pause.] We can't get it to shut off."

"Oh, that's just great."

My brother says when they got in the car and my dad started up the engine, the horn started blasting, with my highly motivated dad trying various means to silence it.

These days, a used BMW occupies the parking space next to my parents' house. It's a powerful little thing for navigating hills and curves, and has a good sound system--a tad loud in the back, though. Oh, wait, there are two used BMWs, a pretty red one for my mom. Just two. Both have had their issues, but the speedometers work, and last I checked, all side mirrors are intact.