You never forget your first love. That’s why we’re looking back with unknown Dutch people on their first cars. We turn the clock back to 1991, when Joost Boers bought his first car: a Volvo 66.
You can hardly start your car career more boringly than with a Volvo 66…
“That first car is mainly a means of transport, of course. I could buy it from a garage company at a good price and wanted to experience how such a Daf had grown into a real Volvo. The automatic transmission was a funny bonus, of course, but I thought it was a nice experiment. I already had the plan to install a nice stereo in it. I already had the Pioneer radio-CD player and the speakers at home before I got the keys to the car. The steel parcel shelf and trunk really formed a super sound box. And I had arranged Pioneer stickers with the radio, which went across the full width of the rear window.”
I know you a little, you’re not really a mechanic. So this car was trouble free?
“When I drove off the garage premises, I had to brake for a cyclist on the bike path. My brother, who had brought me in my mother’s Fiat Panda, didn’t see that and rear-ended me. So immediately a crumpled rear end. But not so much damage to my car, I could keep driving it. At one point, the car regularly vibrated while driving. I suspected a bearing and went to the local Volvo dealer. Then there was nothing to see or notice, of course. A few days later, I wanted to drive off at an intersection and the nipple of the throttle cable broke loose. There you are. So I called the garage again and they sent help. The mechanic who drove the car behind the tow truck noticed that there were a lot of vibrations. So along with the cable, that problem was also solved. Fortunately, that wasn’t super expensive. But when I had it a bit longer, I discovered that there were a lot of wet newspapers under the rubber mat in the trunk. Not a good sign, but fortunately, I couldn’t find any peace. Something was wrong there.”
Did you take any long trips with it?
“Not really, I had just graduated and still had to do military service. So I mainly drove around locally. And a few trips, for example, to the province of Zeeland for the beach. The automatic transmission was nice, but you had to give quite a bit of gas to drive off, that took some getting used to. Once it was driving, it went quite smoothly. And the fuel consumption didn’t seem too bad to me either, the first time I filled up I was really nervous about how much it would cost. Such a Volvo with an automatic transmission, in my eyes, wasn’t made for low consumption.”
So overall, were you satisfied with the Volvo?
“Honestly, I only kept it for a few months. Because of the damage, I did get a payout from the insurance, even though the car was technically a total loss. I started my service in Voorburg, which meant I had to be at the station early every day and, of course, came back later. I could trade in the Volvo quite reasonably for a much younger Fiat Panda – that seemed better to me given the issues I had experienced by then. I could transfer the radio, so that was an attractive deal. Later I calculated that, with the insurance money from the damage and the trade-in, I had driven the Volvo, all things considered: insurance, gasoline, road tax, and repairs, at a profit!”