nvdw wrote:The declutching servo! Adds a bit of comfort to the gear selecting business but to be honest, if drive my DAF for almost a year now and I rarely grind the gears.

The garage the car is standing in is a pain to get into, even more so when leaving it with a cold engine, and having to push the choke in every time I had to change gear. Leaving it running to warm up wasn't really an option either, the fumes built up a lot ... This is a real comfort gain for me now

foggyjames wrote:Tom...do you see what I see in the middle of that silver V66's alloy....?

Oooh, a V centre cap

Tom

The Mk1s back on the road again - and straight onto the Volvo Club Deutschland's stand at the Essen Techno Classica Motor Show. The VCD's theme this year was "het beste van twee landen" along with several cars from the DAF/early Volvo NL period:







Some pics from the DAF Club Deutschland's stand, featuring the oldest 343 I've ever seen "in the flesh" - from Sept. 1976:







Legendary Herman (150x Daf-owning) Robberts rescued the car from a scrapyard in Göttingen several years ago:



Some pics from the "official" Volvo stand, celebrating 25 years of the P1800:





Irv Gordon, who clocked up 4,500,000 kms in his P1800 and Pelle Petterson, the car's designer:



More pics from the show here.

Cheers

Tom

Thanks for taking pix Tom, I couldn't find any time to visit Essen this year. A bit of a let down for me, especially since a VCD man already told me last year they would have a Dutch-oriented theme this Techno Classica! I found that quite daring since almost all of the club's cars are 'real' Volvos (ie not made in Born, and no, that does not reflect my own opinion) but I was told the VCD would love to have more 300 and 400 Series in its midst.

awesome pics Tom.

^ That.

All of the cars look amazing! It must be quite a contrast for you Tom,, having the cleaner than new 343 and then the daily which has needed a bit of lovin!

Damn that Touring looks amazing. Great job Tom. Love those pics, wow!

That yellow 343 is my all time favorite ever car of all time ever.

Thanks for the comments Had some interesting chats to people at the stand, but I never want to hear the following sentences again:

"I used to have one of those"
"I used to have loads of parts and accessories for that, but binned them all"

Thanks to Jos360 as well, for leaving some parts in the boot for me on Friday

nvdw wrote:Thanks for taking pix Tom, I couldn't find any time to visit Essen this year. A bit of a let down for me, especially since a VCD man already told me last year they would have a Dutch-oriented theme this Techno Classica! I found that quite daring since almost all of the club's cars are 'real' Volvos (ie not made in Born, and no, that does not reflect my own opinion) but I was told the VCD would love to have more 300 and 400 Series in its midst.

The original plan was to find a nice phase 1 400 series, like a GLT or a Turbo, to complete the stand but no-one could find any That amazes me, the early top-level 400s are pretty nice, especially with body kits ...

I haven't had much contact with the VCD up until now, I've heard that there's a strong fraction there who think that even the boxy swedish Volvos are too new to be worth featuring ... But times are-a-changing, next year the plan is to have a "modified Volvo" stand including a 240 pickup There's be a few P1800 and "red Amazon with leather interior" owners frowning a bit there

Tom

Hi Tom.
Words can't describe those pic. Fantastic.
Cheers Mark.

trabitom99 wrote:Thanks for the comments Had some interesting chats to people at the stand, but I never want to hear the following sentences again:

"I used to have one of those"

Tom

Lovely yellow 343!

I used to have one of those in blue

Great photos, given me inspiration to get on with the Mk 1 project

trabitom99 wrote: Thanks to Jos360 as well, for leaving some parts in the boot for me on Friday

Np Tom, too bad we couldn't meet!

More pics:
http://dafclub.de/html/Technoclass11.html

Cheers

Tom

A quick update for this car ... @Chris_C - you'll recognise the Transrapid in the picture





Nothing much happened recently, except that it reverted to being my daily in the autumn of 2011 and I actually drove it quite a lot. Most service items have been seen to on this car (fluids, plugs, dizzy caps, belts etc), but unfortunately I'd neglected the points, which meant it started jumping about on the motorway in the middle of the night, with three colleagues in the car, eventually coming to a complete standstill. Many thanks to Volvo Lauff in Moers, who weren't phased by such things as finding spare ignition parts for AC Delco distributors

Anyway, since then it's been running really sweetly. On my to do list is to put the original push button radio back, just because it looks better in the old dashboard, and replace the heater valve which is permanently off ATM (very chilly!). Also, I'm going to fit the rear gas shocks from my GLi, which haven't done too many kms, to complement the new springs and (gas) shocks at the front.

But now it's getting very cold in Germany, subzero temperatures and salt on the roads. So ... plates off and "abgemeldet" so I don't have to pay tax and insurance while it's standing about.

Last pics before it goes into hibernation:






More in late spring / early summer.

Cheers

Tom

trabitom99 wrote:A quick update for this car ... @Chris_C - you'll recognise the Transrapid in the picture

My new favourite museum ever! Must sort out my pictures.

Hi Tom.
What a car . Love the front spoiler.
I showed the pics of the yellow 343 to the wife and she laughted
and said, "thats where yours should be"
Cheers Mark.