Finally, I found my loaner car in the parking lot next to the train station in Luleå, Sweden. Its tasteful, drab blue paint peeped out from beneath a fresh blanket of glinting snow. It was a Volvo, of course. What else but a Volvo would I use for a trip up half the length of this long, dangling digit of a country? The streets of Sweden are filthy with Volvos. The semitrucks are Volvos. The heavy-construction excavators are Volvos. The children are Volvos.
And not only did I have a Volvo in Volvoland, but I also had the most Volvo of Volvos among the assorted varieties of Volvos; I had a Volvo station wagon. It was a luxuriously long and low V90. Well, it was a plug-in-hybrid V90, but that wouldn’t matter because where I was heading, the electric outlets in the parking lot were for engine-block heaters, not for recharging fancy lithium-ion battery packs. I was going north of the Arctic Circle to check out the region that’s become Europe’s hot spot for cold-weather vehicle testing. If you drive a European car made in the past few decades, it was probably partly developed here. All I needed was a tank of gasoline, heated seats, and a set of studded Hakkapeliitta 9 extreme winter tires.
But wait, there was a sticker on this car. Actually, there were three of them, one on each rear flank and another on the hatchback. They read “Bilbolaget.com” in an awkward quasi-cursive font. Turns out, bilbolaget means “the car company” in Swedish, a language not often given to flowery rhetorical flourishes. It’s a car dealer. Or a car distributor. Or, well, it’s a car company of some sort. Whatever. I decided then that I would christen him “Bilbo Waggins.” And thus, we began our adventure together.
Esta historia es de la edición June - July 2023 de Road & Track.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición June - July 2023 de Road & Track.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
REMADE IN JAPAN
ON A MISSION TO HIGHLIGHT THE COUNTRY'S FINEST ARTISANS, BUILT BY LEGENDS PIECES TOGETHER THE GREATEST-AND MOST EXPENSIVE-SKYLINE RESTOMODS EVER BUILT.
CREASE MONKEY
HOW GIORGETTO GIUGIARO'S FOLDED-PAPER ERA DEFINED THE SEVENTIES AND BEYOND.
WOULD THE REAL INTEGRA PLEASE STEP FORWARD?
A comparison between a 2001 Type R and the all-new Type S reveals much about motoring, then and now.
HUMMER. REBORN
After more than a decade, General Motors' profligate son returns.
THE V-8 BENCHMARK
The E39-generation BMW M5 has been the sport-sedan icon for over 20 years. Can Cadillac's CT5-V Blackwing measure up?
BABY BLUE
The Mazda Miata gets better without changing much at all.
INSANE BROTHERS.FROM OTHER MOTHERS
The Lamborghini Urus Performante presents with symptoms of Completely Bonkers first seen in the Nineties GMC Typhoon.
NO RESERVE
BRING A TRAILER'S ONLINE AUCTIONS ARE TRANSFORMING HOW COLLECTOR CARS ARE SOLD.
Going, Going, Gone
The generational shift that's redefining what a collector car is.
LET'S GET DIGITAL
TO EVOKE PROTOTYPE RACING'S RADDEST ERA, A CLASSICALLY STYLED CHRONOGRAPH WON'T DO