1966 Volvo 122s @coreypeltonphotography
It was cooler in the darkness. With all four windows down the summer air felt bearable at 4:00 a.m. What would it feel like at 3:00 p.m.? That was one of many unknowns that haunted my thoughts in those early hours.
What was I thinking driving ten hours with my young son in a vehicle I really knew nothing about. The tools I brought were minimal. Per usual, my optimism was at a high when the journey began, but now it was waning. In the dark my fears were heightened. The car was an oxidized gray 40 year-old Volvo. Surfing the unlit curves of the Cumberland Plateau, I became increasingly unsure that an eighteen wheeler would even know I existed. The headlights yellow glow cast about cow length before us. I could have taken comfort in the fact that Volvo was the first to install seat belts. But that was 40 years ago. This was 2006. They had upped their safety game since the lap belt I was wearing.
I kept driving, my son grinning and content to be sitting in a moving oven. Every hour or two I would stop and check the oil. She kept chugging her max of 55 MPH as Saturns and Ford Fiestas blew past us.
I had always romanticized purchasing a classic vehicle sight unseen from somewhere across the nation and driving it home. There’s a warmth in the smell of old vinyl seats and a nostalgia to simple engines and no-nonsense crank windows. I love the mechanical click of my left foot pressing the floorboard headlight dimmer switch to dim and back to dimmer. To experience that in a semi-transcontinental trip seemed like a worthy adventure.
The allure of these ancient mechanical beasts started at a young age. Early memories of my childhood were watching the asphalt of the road blur by through the rusted out floorboard of my dad’s Volvo; the same model I was now driving with my son. I remember a rusty old railroad spike clanging out through that hole after a fishing trip to Doctor’s Pond. We had walked the tracks and picked up however many spikes we found. One escaped and is most likely still somewhere very out of place to this day.
My father had found the car in which my son and I had set off for this great adventure. It was located near him in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He offered to trailer it to Knoxville, Tennessee where I would meet him and drive it off the trailer. That my dad trailered it revealed his hesitancy in my plans.
Now I knew why. With every town we entered, and every mile closer to home, I became more and more relieved to have made it that far. The what-ifs were constantly on my mind. Belts, radiator, water pump. I watched the temperature gauge as if it would spiral out of the dash at any given moment.
After twelve sweaty hours we pulled into the driveway of our Hot Springs, Arkansas home. We made it. The dream made landing. My wife came outside to celebrate with us. “Huh. This is it?” I could almost swear that she glanced around to see if there were any hidden cameras or Al Funts.