Here’s a checklist for a father-and-son adventure:
1. Find a classic Volvo that hasn’t run in five years on Internet and purchase sight unseen.
2. Pack spare parts and camping gear.
3. Fly cross-country on a one-way ticket.
4. Get car running in an hour.
5. Drive 2,000 miles home.
Easy, right? Well, for Roy Marcaurelle and his son Ben, their 2009 journey to bring this 1963 Volvo PV544 Sport from Colorado all the way back home to Massachusetts pretty much followed right along with that plot. Taken by the largely robust condition of classics he saw out West while visiting his two daughters, who were living in Fort Collins at the time, Roy set out looking for a suitable classic to bring East.
“I had always wanted a 544,” he says, “and I had family out in Colorado. We were out there and saw the rust-free cars in that area. So, I started searching around on Craigslist and I found this car that hadn’t run in five years. I decided that since my son was just graduating from high school and going away to college, it would be the perfect time to do it. I was reassured by the seller that the car had anti-freeze in it and it didn’t have a cracked block. And the engine did turn over. So, we assembled some camping gear and some hand tools. I bought a rebuilt cylinder for the master cylinder, the fuel pump, and got on JetBlue.
“We got out there,” Roy continues, “rented a car, bought a gas can and a battery and drove out to the car. We actually had the car running in about an hour. With the car running and moving, we drove it to the girls’ house in Fort Collins and had the fluids changed at a Jiffy Lube and kind of went through the car a little bit. We got the lights squared away and all the other things we needed to do to get the car roadworthy–or somewhat roadworthy, anyway. And off we went.” The path home was only minimally eventful, even with the brutal summer heat across the center of the country. “We headed across I-70 and it never got below 100 degrees all the way back. We camped out along the way and had no major problems. Every time we stopped to get gas, we had to prime the carburetor, because it had vapor lock, because it’s got a Weber on it and no heat shield. Prime it, get it going and off we go.”
Just in case, Roy had a backup plan. “I was just going to rent a U-Haul box truck and throw it in the back, but it just kept chugging away.” Even with the contingency plan, Roy’s unintimidated attitude toward tackling a non-running, near-50-year-old car with a handful or parts and tools and high-tailing it immediately cross country should serve as an inspiration to any old-car enthusiast. After all, the simple, straightforward mechanicals of a 1963 Volvo, itself an evolution of the 1944 PV444, have no secrets. Roy has worked on his own cars for most of his life, since buying his first car, a 1955 Chevy, of all things, when he was just 13 years old. To him, the Volvo is quite simple.
Since the mid-1990s, Volvo has acted like pretty much every other car company, generally replacing their existing models on a four- or five-year cycle, but before that, Volvo kept cars in the lineup for as much as 20 years at a time. Tried and true trumped trendy over time for the Swedish automaker. Take the iconic 240 and related models that Volvo produced from 1974 through 1993: Its body shape remained largely unchanged despite incremental mechanical and safety upgrades. The PV444/544 models had a slightly longer life than the 240, with Volvo producing them from 1944 through 1965. There were subtle changes over the years, largely related to increased engine power via additional displacement, improved carburetion and the like. But it wasn’t a bored market that led Volvo to re-introduce the car with a new name, as the PV444 enjoyed its best sales year in 1957.
Volvo debuted the PV544 in 1958, leaving its predecessor’s 1941 Ford look intact, save for the substitution of a curved windshield for the two-piece split windshield on the PV444. More importantly, a four-speed, synchromesh transmission was standard with the PV544 and from 1962 on, the PV544 used the 1,780cc, four-cylinder, overhead-valve engine that had debuted months previously with the P1800. In Volvo’s GT car, the B18 was good for 100hp and 108-lbs.ft. of torque, but some changes were made for its use in the PV. Compression was lowered from 9.5:1 to 8.5:1, a different camshaft was used and output was reduced to 90hp and 105-lbs.ft. of torque, with both peaks coming 500 RPM below that of the more sporting P1800.
But overall, the B18 remained thick with robustness, even in the PV544. With its five generously sized main bearings, water jacketing that fully surrounds each cylinder for optimum temperature control and a deep skirt that extends down well past the crankshaft’s centerline, it’s no wonder the B18 has proven so remarkably durable in the ensuing five decades. The cast-iron cylinder head uses individual, matched ports for each of the exhaust and intake valves, a marked improvement over earlier Volvo cylinder heads that used siamesed ports. Like the body seemingly made from an extra-thick helping of steel, Volvo’s B18 engine was almost universally praised for being overbuilt, its capacity and output easily outstripped by its sturdiness.
Inside the humpbacked Volvo, which offered quite a bit of headroom compared to newer, lower cars reaching the market in the 1960s, Volvo’s biggest change to the PV544 involved replacing the more traditional round speedometer with a horizontal and trapezoidal gauge that looks like it would be more at home in the likes of a Chevy Biscayne than a European car. But the big white-on-black numbers are easy to read.
Back in West Newbury, Massachusetts, Roy took a closer look at the exterior and decided it was just about perfect. “The paint is weathered,” says Roy, “which is the way I like it. Some people ask me, ‘When are you going to paint it?’ Some people get it, some people don’t. I’m never going to paint this car.” Roy favors the rat-rod look, and with the body essentially already there, he took to doing a little work under the hood. A previous owner, possibly the same fellow who redid the paint and the interior around 10 years ago, installed a single Weber carburetor and the Cannon intake in place of the pair of SU carbs. Roy took that a step further and added a Mallory dual-point ignition and a tubular steel exhaust header. Like a good rat rod, Roy’s PV544 presents itself much better with the hood open, the spotless engine compartment gleaming.
Underneath, the car required a bit more work, including a few steps to give it just the look that Roy wanted. Although the brakes were essentially sorted for that ride home, they eventually required more extensive work and he went through them, replacing the wheel cylinders and installing new shoes. Roy rebuilt the front end and the suspension, which consists of coil springs and shocks all around. But he cut one coil out of the front springs to add “just a little rake to it.” A fat anti-roll bar from Volvo specialists IPD keeps the front wheels properly planted as well. Finishing off the look, he found a set of 15 x 7 Cragar S/S wheels in the proper offset.
The result is a look uniquely Roy’s. And one that, as Roy says, you either get or you don’t. “Part of the car,” says Roy, “is that snobbish people don’t give it a second look, but it’s a rebuilt car essentially. I brought it to a few cruise nights in the area. I kind of get a kick out of parking next to Corvettes, because they say, ‘Get that thing out of here!’ because it attracts more attention than their cars. But, of course, I don’t. I love it! I go down the highway and people are whaling on the horn with thumbs up, smiling and waving. It’s just an amazing car for attention. It really is. No matter where I go, people gravitate to the car, even if they don’t know what it is.”
Even when not driving the car, Roy enjoys the experience of owning it. “It’s a great car. It’s simple to work on and you can get parts for it. The fun part about this car is buying all the bits and pieces at flea markets that add character. I’ve got the roof rack, which I found in Cambridge in a trash pile on the way to work one day. It’s the right contour. Half the fun is tracking these pieces down and meeting other eccentric Volvo people who used to race these things.”
Maintenance on the PV544 is nothing more than the usual changing of fluids, adjusting brakes and paying attention to the car. Roy has plans to install an overdrive transmission and a slightly more aggressive cam. There are also a couple of minor rust spots calling for his attention that he will take care of.
The future home of this PV544 will not be in Roy’s garage, however. Roy has already let Ben know that the car will be his soon. “We went for a ride last Sunday,” Roy tells us. “He and I went out and were just going around town and whatnot. He said to me, ‘Don’t ever sell this car.’ And I said, ‘I’m not going to sell it. Someday, this car will be yours to remember our trip by.’ He was just smiling, that’s all.”
