The search began to replace the 00'. I was dead set on a laser blue or a saffy. I found a few of them, but I passed on them. They were too thrashed or had too many previous owners for me to want them.
Than I saw a black 98' V70R up for sale on here and Swedespeed that belonged to "petew". It had a nice list of goodies, but I overlooked it. I did'nt want another black car.
I had people randomly PM'ing me and IM'ing me who had seen/driven the car in person and told me it was perfect for me. So I gave it a shot. The fact that it had some mods already done, had full records w/the original owner and according to many was in awesome shape made me forget that it had black paint which I already know gets dirty super easy and is a PITA.
After exchanging emails many times with Pete regarding the car, I had a flight booked about a month ago to go pick it up. I waited patiently.
Friday I finally flew out to go pick up the car. Arrived in Philly with Pete waiting for me. Drove the car around for a bit, shot the bull and ate some dinner. I must say, Pete is one of the most awesome Volvo guys I have met. Was totally honest, upfront and helpful with the whole transaction not to mention a really cool guy in general. Meeting him in person made me feel like I had really made the right decision buying the car.
I had pictures from Friday, but being a nice guy, I deleted them on accident.
So on Saturday morning, we transferred over the title/got tags/etc and I was on my way. To Maryland. To meet up with a few T'brickers having a work day at a shop in Cambridge. I threw the V70R on a lift to see if there was anything I could tinker with. All I ended up doing was removing some stickers from the car.
Afterwards, I followed two of the DC Tbricks guys to Chevy Chase, MD to meet up with the rest of the DC guys. The drive over was not all that fun. I had no idea where I was going and Mike and Ben [the guys I were following] were driving INSANE. After that was done we met up with a few other T'brickers [including 2 VSer's, Chris/Volvokiller and Andy/MaYdAy] to hang out at Dave&Busters. While there, one more VS'er showed up for a little under a minute to say hello [Josh/lax]. We headed back to Ben's place and shot the bull, and drank a few beers since some of us we were going to get kicked out of D&B for being youngins.
^Rob and Towery's game of "drift car hangman" [drawing out mods onto Rob's 242 drift car]
Spent the night on Saturday at a fellow T'brickers [billy/stylngle2003] place in Arlington. Drove down from Arlington to Atlanta [I know I know, most of you guys were saying to not go that way]. But it was an awesome drive! Much prettier than I expected.
^Down the street from Billy's house
^Bored on I-95 so I took a pic of this license plate
I stopped a few times for gas obviously, and a stop at Best Buy for some tunes [I might add that anything by the Aquabats kicks jerk on a road trip]. But, the best stop of them all was when I saw a gigantic building that said "DISCOUNT FIREWORKS" in Blacksburg, SC. Pulled a four lane swerve, took the exit, and there I was standing in awe. I went inside, and was in awe a little more. So many Darn fireworks. Being impulsive and being in a state with lame fireworks sales laws [safe&sane only], and a county that does not allow the sale of fireworks, I had to give in a little. Brought plenty home for me and the frinds to blow ourselves up with.
Rolled thru Atlanta around 8 pm, but kept going and ended up outside of Birmingham, Alabama instead at midnight and decided to stay there for the night. Here is a shot of the car in Atlanta
Once I left Alabama on Monday the more boring the drive started getting. Once I hit Texas I really wanted to get home. Kept the speed no more than 85, I had no form of radar detection so I could not get too out of hand. Here are some shots, either from a stop in Texas or Louisiana, not sure.
Picked my dad up in Dallas who flew in to help me out the rest of the way home. Ended up in Odessa, TX at 1 am.
Woke up at 7 am and hit the road again. We were going to try and make it all the way from Odessa back here to Aptos. Went thru El Paso, stopped in some Deming, Mexico for some Wendy's [we also encountered a gnarly police chase in the middle of the town, cops were coming from all directions toward some shopping center, one cop pulled a 4 wheel drift around a corner and had I not been paying attention like some morons do I would have gone right into him]. Next stop was Phoenix. I was going to get my oil changed at the dealer I used to work at, but all the techs decided to leave 2 hours early. I was'nt able to convince them to let me use the shop either, so I trusted the Mobil-1 that had been in there the previous 4000 miles or so for the drive home.
We barged and barged thru the desert and up the California coast, and made it back here at 4 am Wednesday morning.
^Could'nt have done the last leg of the drive without these two bottles, errr, cans.
I had an awesome time on the trip. The car did absolutely awesome as well. No issues whatsoever [my dad freaked out though when he started the car and saw the "service" reminder light on], rode awesome [blizzaks on meteors] and got great mileage [25 average, good considoring I did 80 mph the whole way almost]
Was very nice meeting some of you guys along the way as well and hope to do it again someday. Thanks to Mike for letting us use his shop, Billy for letting me crash at his place, and Pete for being so hospitable and taking such Darn good care of this car the past 8 years. I'm really going to enjoy it.
But seriously, cool to meet you, you are welcome anytime.
