My 1986 Volvo 740 GLE

Wassap all!

In this post, I wanted to remember all of the customizations of my 2nd car, my volvo.  This car was an important one because this was when I had an avenue of manifesting my car customization.

When I first got my silver Volvo, I was in the 11th grade.  The car was unimpressive on many levels.  The car was a hand-me-down from my parents which got it new.  With some quick math the car started its life with me when it was nearly 10 years old.  It had 70k something miles on it and I left it with double that.  It went through a transmission where my dad had to drive the car backwards up the hill.  That in itself was remarkable.  It also survived a head- on crash with some bitch.  The car was totalled with my dad in it.  The car did save my dad's life.  That was remarkable.  Then my dad got it back and fixed it.  It came with heated seats which was kind of neat when you are out late partying.  This made the car popular with the ladies.  That and my impressive tunes.

The car was notorious for its break squeaking.  I frequented midas for their break warranty.  I even had custom plates because they started using images in the plates.  I had a HAND and then LTHIS

The original tire size was uncommon, so I decided to get a slightly wider one that was cheaper. 

The antenna was stuck. If you look at similar models on the street today, you will see that their antenna is fucked up. So I took it out. I recall that the replacement was exorbantly priced at the time. $200. 

It had a decent stereo casette deck that came with it.  It even had auto-reverse (that was a big deal back then) and Dolby NR.  The thing with it was that all the casettes would get stuck in there and the radio station would change erratically. 

So we started things out with a JVC casette with a detachable face.  The detachable face was a big deal back then because people would take their entire stereo out of the car so that it wouldn't get stolen.  Quite often you would see people look like retards walking around with their car stereos.  A detachable face was cool because you could fit it in your coat pocket.

I got that with a small Jensen Amp.  I just started learning about brands quality, power, and wires.  Then your's truely lost the face somewhere (I suspected in the mall).  Interestly enough, I was not sad.  I was a bit happy so that I could buy a BETTER deck.  Next one I got was a Blaupunkt casette.  I did my research this time.  This one was German, it felt like it was made well.  It had high power for the speakers and an aux output for my portable cd player.  I might add, I got my cd player and I thought it was the shit.  It would skip like a mutherfucker, and would DEVOUR batteries like in 2 hours.  Back to my stereo decks, The Blau was super cool.  You could program it to scroll a message when you turned it on.  I had it say something like Whats Up Prince Robin!  Or something like that.  One sad day, the thing broke.  On the bright side, I started a full time job and blew my entire paycheck on an Alpine deck AND 6 disc cd changer.  That was SUPER cool.  Not to mention I was one of the first people to download mp3s and burn my own cds on a 2x cd burner(hahaha  It took like an hour to burn a cd).  Not to mention I had to download mp3s on a piece of shit dial up.  It took me one hour to download one goddam song.  I still have some mp3s that I got when I was in High School.  At that point, I was at the pinnacle of audio fidelity in my Volvo.  I know for a fact that I have invested more in the car for what it was worth.  But, it was all good.  At that point in time, I invested in 3 sets of speakers in my car.  One set died and was promptly replaced.  Then I had BASS.  I had several base recepticals.  I had a Bazooka, and then a Rockford Fosgate.  The car literally rattled like it was falling to pieces.  As for the Amps, I had a small Jensen, then I got some high powered X brand.  Then I learned that you need to have quality power.  I had an Alpine amp and a Rockford Fosgate Amp.  I forgot how many watts they were.

As for the rest of the car, I was down to change anything and/or everything I could afford.  I changed the lights inside.  I had purple dome lights, purple floor lights, red bulbs in the speedo/tach, even the reverse lights were purple.  I went through several sets of floodlights.  You would be thinking I lived in a foggy area, but you would be wrong.  I even had some strobe lights.  One time they were smoking and I had to pull over on the freeway.  One time I noted it was rattling below the car and realized that it was the catalyitc converter.  I went to a guy and they removed it.  Yup, I had a straight pipe in my Volvo, and fuck it was significantly faster.  Then I got a cone air filter that gave it some more pep.  Then I wanted to do more, but realized that this car has reached its speed potential and not worth putting more money in it.  I read about some guy that put a 5.0 Mustang engine in his Volvo and that though crossed my mind, but I really didn't like the shape of the Vovo enough.  One thing about the car was that it rarely got me stranded.  It was a reliable car for the most part.