The Dread Contagion of Moronicity.

Readers herein will note that one of the taglines of this blog is that it’s The Official Home of the “I Am A Moron” Project.

Why? Well, by any practical measure, buying a 20-year-old car to use as a daily driver, even if it IS a Volvo, is probably not the smartest thing to do. Nor is it really all that wise to ladle great affection on said car.

But hey, it’s fun--you know, if you have a loose screw or two.

Now, it’s pretty plain that the moron disease for old iron is dangerous, and it can wind up infecting everyone around you. Particularly pernicious are people like me.

Yep--I’m a moron disease vector. And I have managed to infect someone else with the fever.

I have a friend here in town whom I call in various blogposts My Friend Jeff™. If you check back through the archives from when I first started posting, I occasionally refer to him--we used to work together and have kept in touch after going to our new jobs. Mainly because he’s a car guy, too, and has a nice mean streak to him, and his wife is cute. We’ll get together every month or so and swap car magazines and eat lunch, and a couple of weeks ago I passed along a stack of magazines that had a copy of the new Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car, and that issue just happened to contain an article about the Volvo P1800.

Apparently this article, along with the constant exposure to the Moron Virus through my showing off the new junkyard finds I have attached to Järn, caused My Friend Jeff to develop a terribly wicked case of Moronicus vulgaris. What makes it even funnier--at least to me--is that he’s never even mentioned Volvos, old or new, as one of the cars he’d like to have. There have been various early-‘70s Cutlass Supremes (like he had in high school) he’s lusted after, and some Bimmers, and a few other things he’d say would be neat to fix up, but never anything from Göteborg.

SO, imagine my surprise yesterday morning when the following e-mail message popped up on my screen:

COOOOLLL!!! I want this!

For those reading after the link dies, it’s a link to an Ebay auction of an okay-looking ’67 P1800. It was very weird for him to come up with, but after a minute or two of furious e-mail exchanges, it became quite clear to me that he was not joking, but had The Sickness.

Anyway, what follows is probably the stupidest e-mail exchanges you will likely ever read, so if you want to bail out, that’s fine, but if you want the fullest viewing of what it means to be Morons In Action, keep on reading. (Obviously, J is for Jeff, and T is for Me.)

T-- They really are pretty neat-looking cars. You know “The Saint” drove one on the teevee.

J-- I was reading about them last night in one of the magazines I got from you. WAAAAYYYYY cool. I wish I had your mechanical abilities. That would make having one of those a little more practical. Do you think one of those would make a okay daily driver? I like the dashboard. I’ll bet it drives like a truck though.

T-- Yes, they make pretty good daily drivers--parts are relatively easy to come by, and they’re mechanically simple. Driving is probably no better or worse than any other mid-60s coupe. You know, the guy who owns the world’s record for miles driven did it in a P1800. His name’s Irv Gordon, and he’s got over 2.3 million miles on the same car.

J-- Cool! I like the coupe better than the sport wagon – but the wagon is kinda cool. I have always liked the Bertone coupes too.

T-- They’re okay, too, but I always like the 1800 better. The 240 Bertones were really sorta homely.

J-- They just look so Euro-80s to me. I just always thought they were kinda pretty. Weird interior. 1800s are just classic and cool, no doubt about it. So are 240s of course.

T-- Of course! Although, if I really get energetic, and one of the kids winds up with the 240, I would really like to have an old 122 Amazon. They look a bit like a mid-50s Alfa-Romeo sedan.

J-- I like that one. My uncle was big into Volvos. He had one like this when I was a kid. Of course, he’s DEAD now!!! It was a clunky old Volvo. Kinda cool lookin’. Not as cool as an 1800, however.

T-- No, I agree with you on that--but for us upstanding family men, sometimes we have to balance practicality with style.

J-- Is that the because you have 4 kids and I only have 3? Yours still couldn’t all fit in an Amazon. Where’d that name come from anyway?

T-- “Yes,” on your question, and “I know, but don’t care,” on your statement. The Amazon was named that because the factory is in Brazil alongside a tributary of the Amazon.

J-- Well strip my gears and call me shiftless. You learn something new everyday.

T-- And did you know the Bertone was actually designed by a guy named Bert One?

J-- You’re joshin’ me, aincha?

T-- No, he was a second generation Japanese-American who had been a member of a Nisei combat team in Italy during WWII (100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry). After the war, he went back to Italy and began his own industrial design company.

J-- Yawn…that was so boring, I couldn’t read it. However, I did skim it and never saw a reference to Bert One.

T-- Oh, well, that’s because I was just talking about his unit. He was in charge of the motor pool, but he’s not mentioned in the article.

J-- How convenient.

T-- Did you know that Pininfarina also used to be two names? Sergio Pinin Farina was the guy’s name.

J-- Of course I did. Did you know it was really a guy named Chev Rolet who started General Motors?

T-- Did you know there really is a Chef Hector Boiardi who was the model for Chef Boyardee?

J--Wow!

T--Hang around with me long enough, and you’ll get all smart like.

J--If it hasn’t happened in 16 years, it probably ain’t gonna happen.

Yep, I guess so.

ANYway, “Viva Old Volvos,” and their power to infect perfectly sane persons with terrible mental calamity!