• @Dammit asked me to do a holiday write up. If you make it to the end, I applaud your perseverance

    So, Dammit's LOLVO.

    I took it on a drive through France, Luxembourg, and Belgium on a trip to see an old friend in the South of France and then another even older friend in Luxembourg City.
    Why did I borrow the Volvo? I could have probably squeezed nearly everything required into the MX5, it would have been tight and I would have left behind a few luxuries but it was possible.

    The main reason is that my gf can't deal with how loud the MX5 is. She deals with it over 2-3 hours but any longer and she says she feels a bit unwell. This is understandable as I even have to drive it with ear plugs in otherwise I emerge wobbly and even deafer than usual.
    The trip started with a 2 day run down to Lyon via Lille, Reims, and the Morvan National Park. We avoided toll roads entirely and motorways from Lille onwards. Well actually it started with a 03:45 alarm to catch a 06:40 ferry.

    Upon emerging from the ferry in Calais, my gf and I realised we had made no plans of where to go, bar driving to our campsite in the Morvan National Park the "long way". My gf was extremely against adding hours on to what would already be a long trip but I managed to convince her a stop at Lille and Reims would be ideal on the way down. Lille was quiet on a Saturday morning but a whistelstop tour of the cathedral and one of the many patisseries for delicious French treats was very nice.

    From there we attacked the rolling hills of northern France down to Reims. The roads were single carriageway, sweeping bends, with wonderful views. My gf opted to enjoy the scenery briefly between naps, which I worried was going to be problematic as without her I had nobody to tell me if there was oncoming traffic, but mercifully there were few other vehicles on the road, and the Volvo breezed past slower cars with ease when required.

    The roads got smaller, the villages quainter, and soon we were within 15 minutes of Reims. Sensing this great progress and the proximity of a rest, the car decided now was the perfect time to cause some mischief.

    I had to burble along at 20mph for a few miles through some villages behind some local cars and all of a sudden coming down a gentle hill and slowing to give way at a traffic calming measure, the engine cut out. A myriad of lights came on the dashboard, I managed to get the car started back up, but within seconds it died again and I managed to coast onto the verge.

    Bonnet up I had a poke around, everything looked OK but it refused to start, it just turned over. Remembering Dammit's previous experience on the way back from Castle Combe I gave it 10 minutes then started it back up and away we went. Unfortunately, not 100 metres down the road, it cut out again, I managed to coast for a 100 metres or so and then kind of parked it like it had been abandoned in front of a farm entrance. I think it was at this point I decided to message Dammit as I was starting to get worried. I decided of my own accord that the issue was that the oil was overheating when I slowed down due to lack of airflow over an oil cooler that I wasn’t even sure existed, but the obvious solution was to drive as fast as possible to Reims to make sure the oil cooler (does it even exist?) was able to a decent job. 10 minutes later it started up and I think everyone in the Reims area is still talking about the red Volvo estate that was seen driving far too quickly around extremely unsuitable roads. Pulling up outside the old pit garages at the old Reims GP circuit, I opened the bonnet again, spent 30 minutes talking to Dammit, changed a fuel pump relay, took some photos, and I think it was at this point Dammit and I discussed the air con being the issue for the first time, not the oil cooler as I had been thinking previously.

    So after a rest and a decision to not have the aircon on when driving slowly, my gf and I abandoned the decision to visit Reims town centre and just carry on to the Morvan national park in the hope that we get there before sunset even if we have to make a couple more stops due to car trouble.

    With a somewhat sombre mood now due to the uncertainty of the car’s behaviour, I picked the pace up slightly and I shouldn’t discuss the sorts of speeds with which we navigated beautiful N and D roads. Again I must reiterate the level of comfort and quietness that the Volvo maintained while delivering such stunning performance and its ability to make every French person don a quizzical face while trying to comprehend what they were seeing.

    The real surprise for me was not the power, the way it’s delivered, or the ability of the car to maintain it’s dad spec demeanour, it was actually the cornering ability. The body rolls, but it does so gently. This introduces a delay into the cornering but it’s a predictable delay, one you can account for. If you were to try and take corners the way I was halfway through this run from Reims, at your first attempt of driving it, I’m sure you’d have a bad time. However, once you get used to it, you’re able to achieve very smooth, constant steering angle turns, no sawing at the wheel here! You pitch the car in, for a split second of panic the steering feedback disappears as the body gently rolls but then settles, you’re now angled over but held very comfortably by the generous Volvo seats, and there is a lot of feedback, you can put the car exactly where you want, but it does require you to have estimated vaguely correctly pre-corner. Mid corner quick adjustments cause the calm nature of the car to disappear but just for a second while it regains its composure.

    The roads got more interesting, some elevations changes, changes of scenery, some tighter corners, some hairpins, some flowing longer corners, but thankfully little traffic and plenty of time to just whack the tunes up and really enjoy the drive. We got to the campsite feeling relaxed despite the fact we’d been driving all day long, and I had really had an absolutely great time driving the car.

    My gf and I went out for a meal in a nearby town called Autun that evening, and just my luck (maybe not hers?) there was a classic car rally (actual rally, not a meetup) going on that weekend. On the way back from dinner, a lot of the cars were heading back from scrutineering to their various hotels, campsites, or motorhomes and I had a wonderful 15-20 minute drive chasing some 70s and 80s 911 rally cars and some stunning MK1 Escorts passed us going the other way too. Real petrolhead nirvana situation and one I think I’ll remember for years to come.

    The next morning we headed to Lyon and there were more beautiful forest roads and great scenery until we ended up in Lyon centre to see my friend on her boat moored up outside the Confluence centre. Thankfully, with the aircon off in town we suffered no issues and I’m assuming it has a standard clutch as it’s very easy to drive in traffic.

    Over the next few of days we stayed on the boat, we parked the car in a secure car park and used it a couple of times in town and to get to a wakeboarding place etc, then we cruised on the boat up to Chalon, returning to Lyon by train to pick the car up with another friend who had left her car in the car park too. We hit a motorway for the 1 hour drive back up to Chalon and picked up a young french hitchhiker who I scared absolutely shitless giving it full throttle through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd away from a toll booth.

    We stayed overnight again in Chalon on the boat with the car taking a prized car parking space usually reserved for the fancy 5* minibus that is used to ferry the €8,000 a week passengers who usually stay on the boat (I shit you not, this boat was luxury).

    The next day we packed up and we headed North East to the Vosges mountains. Again we stayed off motorways and took some scenic roads, but they were more dual carriageway A roads than B roads so I was pleased to get to the Vosges national park and get on some better roads. We hit some cols on the way through La Bresse and to lake Gerardmer and the Volvo was quite frankly, incredible. It is so fast up hills, it takes the corners so well, the brakes are astonishing - this is not a light car to slow down - and it destroyed anyone and everyone who tried to keep up. I wasn’t even trying, as I was trying to enjoy the scenery, but it just seemed so easy to drive quickly. A man in a new Golf GTi did seem to hang on through some lower corners but when it started getting windier, he soon disappeared. As anywhere decent from the hotel we stayed at required more hills to go up and down I got a few different runs in and I had a bloody good time.

    The next day we headed off up to Luxembourg City and after leaving the National Park it was motorways and dual carriageways so I settled in and enjoyed the comfort of the car, it’s a shame the cruise control doesn’t work! It does this very well too, munches boring miles in comfort, you have to really focus the mind on driving as it’s easy to start thinking about other things. The closer you get to Luxembourg City, the more the dicks in flash cars come out to play. No word of a lie, the Volvo despatched a new Maserati Gran Turismo. Twice. The guy came back for another go after he couldn’t cope with his crushing defeat. This guy sums up the reaction, everywhere I would go, if I “exercised” the car at all, people would just be astonished that it could shift in such a manner. My French friend who I went to stay with said that nobody in France drives Volvos, before you see the plate, you just know a Volvo will be on British plates, and they’re always driven slowly. I was rewriting stereotypes everywhere I went.

    After experiencing the Lux City fair that evening, and hanging out with my friend who lives in Lux City with his gf and 6 month old baby the next day, we packed up and headed back to England with large volume of tax free wine and spirits. Of course the Volvo packed in this extra luggage without any issues. Some more standard motorway driving affair got us to Calais in decent time, sadly the end of the trip was marred by a Calais dock worker strike resulting in us paying £140 for a new ferry from Dunkirk but a small success for us and Dammit too I imagine was that with the aircon off the car idled in the ensuing traffic jam at Dunkirk check in for 2+ hours with no random cut outs.

    All in all, a brilliant road trip, in a brilliant car. If Dammit ever offers you the keys, grab them out of his hands and go have a fucking good time. He’s done a good job on this one.

    The feedback I already gave Dammit was that in my opinion it needs a thicker rear ARB to help with that turn in vagueness, and wider (much wider) tyres to cope with the very sudden arrival of large quantities of power at the front wheels!

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