After university studies I have been employed in the public sector, mainly in city administration. As the years have passed I have been married, divorced, remarried, got two great sons who are now in their teens, got better jobs, got better houses, a summer house, a small boat -- the full package. Today I am a middle-aged man, a fact I get a shocking reminder of every time I look in the mirror. In the motoring department, well, as a teenager all those years ago I drove a Vespa 125 scooter, but I did not buy a car until well into my first steady job (and second marriage). A five years old Simca 1100. When we were expecting our firstborn, we replaced the Simca with a 4-door nearly new 1984 VW Passat we kept for 14 years. Our economic priorities in this period had to be focused on house, kindergarten, holidays with the kids etc. etc., and our money could not also cover buying a new car. In my country, which happens to be Norway, cars are considered a punishable luxury and are consequently heavily taxed. But by 1998, we had got our heads above the water to such a degree that we could splash out and get a brand new VW Passat wagon. Things were looking good.

Then in March 2002, I got a call from my father. The 240 he bought new in 1987 and had maintained very meticulously was starting to develop an attitude. It did not always start when it should, coughed during acceleration etc. "Easy stuff", I told him. "Have it tuned up and it will last you for 15 more years, easily." Well, he reckoned that at 74, he did not want to be bothered with a troublesome old car. Why shouldn't he treat himself with a brand new car? He was right of course, so he got a new Peugeot, and the Volvo was up for grabs. My sisters got first refusal as they assumedly needed another car more than I did, and I held my breath. As could have been predicted, neither of them had a clue. They turned the offer down, one by one ("gas guzzler", "too big", "we need a wagon"), and the offer finally filtered down to me. Now, there's a thing you should know about this particular 240: It is as clean as a family car in normal use can possibly be. It has lived most of its life in the garage. Taken out, waxed, and backed in again. 76 K miles on the clock when I got it. As my dad lost both hands in an accident at work when he was a couple of years younger than my present age (he used to be an electrical engineer, and one day 60,000 volts got astray), this car has auto tranny, power steering and power windows -- standard equipment for US cars, but over here that's pretty out of the ordinary for cars this old.

With this background you may understand my decision that this car should not be sold out of the family, so I grabbed it when given the chance. I did not have any clear ideas of what to do with it, as we do not really need two cars. Which was exactly what She Who Must Be Obeyed reminded me when I told at the dinner table what my dad and I had agreed upon on the phone that day. My line of reasoning was that in a couple of years time our oldest son will be old enough to drive, and also that I would find it nice to be able to drive to work every now and then in the monsoon season instead of always having to bike. As we live a 6 min. bike ride from my office, and she's got 9 km to hers - she's got the car.

Her response? "Do we really need to fill up the garage with two cars?" "We don't even drive 10,000 km a year with the one we got (6 K miles), it's nothing to split on two cars!" And so on. Before dinner ended, she had landed on "the obvious" conclusion: "We sell the Passat, of course!" So this was how long I had my very first very own car, at the age of 47: From I got it from my father when at work, until I told the wife during dinner. Well. She did have a point, and the Passat was consequently sold. I was in fact happy to see it go, after the first week of owning it I knew that modern cars simply don't do it for me.

Since then I have developed from a standard, middleaged husband and father with an OK job, newish car and a few other outward symbols of having got past the struggling phase where the expenses exceed the income - to a guy stopping by the local junkyard once a month, slyly making the Sunday family outings past places where I heard there might be a set of used Virgo wheels to be found. I log into the Brickboard Bulletin Board a couple of times each day, I am hoarding new and used parts in the garage, I am in the process of rebuilding the suspension - to my immense satisfaction for simply being able to.

Perhaps my neighbours are thinking I have fallen on bad times; I could not care less. At work, my colleagues are busy counting their money to see if they can afford to replace their Audi A4's with A6's; a sport I am totally out of. I am just having a great time with my old Brick -- even if I only get to drive it in the weekends. A large bit of sentimentality is admittedly also a part of this, as I am the keeper of the car my parents had for 15 years: My younger sisters were taken to their confirmation ceremonies and later to their weddings in this car. My parents have had great holiday trips, both home and abroad, in this car. In late 2001 I drove my father to my mother's funeral in this car. I hope you catch a glimpse of my reasons for wanting to keep this car in great shape forever. Not always as our only car, in a couple of years time I will probably seriously start looking for a late model Volvo 945 Turbo (The Last Real Volvo: Rear wheel drive, red block engine). And/or the Opel GT or Volvo 1800 I have been secretly dreaming of, perhaps? But "Sven-Göran" stays.