Welcome all Volvo fans. Yep, that's me there in the astronaut get-up. Marsha and I went to the VSA Portland meet, which was kicked off by a day at Portland International Raceway (sponsored by ipd), a rare chance for non-racers like me to drive as fast as we like without watching the rear view for flashing red lights. You can read about how that went in the Cascadia section. Also at the meet, Cameron Lovre and I gave a Tech Talk about SU carburetors, which prompted me to write another article about the things with David A. Hueppchen's invaluable input. Cam and I were surprised at how much many people didn't know about SUs, so I hope this will help a few of you make your Volvos run better and more reliably.

Summer is when the most people take Volvo trips, or just do some enthusiastic driving, so we have no lack of tales along those lines from the likes of Lee Holman, Brooks Townes, Greg Blake and Lee Mickelson. In the "Volvos run forever" department, Angelo Lekkas tells us about his 240's first 200,000 miles, and Evan Reisner gets maximum miles per dollar in part one of his new series, "Beaters." Mark Hershoren contributes another in his occasional series on non-Volvo cars with Volvo motors -- this one may surprise you -- in "On Your Marques."

We're holding off on the next segment of the Amazon Restoration because there's just not that much to tell, other than that Bob Moreno is busily spraying and rubbing out coats of blue paint. We'll return with more on that project in the future.

We've gotten a finished copy of Aviv Peres's film 3 Days in Gothenburg, and I can tell you it's very entertaining. Accordingly, we're holding photos from the film over in this issue. The hoary old "Fall Festival Supplement" has now been stripped down to a photo gallery of pics from the Vintage Volvo Gran Prix II.

Subscriptions to our print edition are growing steadily, and feedback has been very positive. We apologize for being quite late with issue #3; Marsha's very elderly father in San Diego passed away, and the ripple effect from dealing with estate matters and such put us way behind schedule. We're a few days late with the web-zine, too, but we are getting caught up.

I still have a few more installments to write for the Cascadia section, telling more about the VSA meet. A Tech Tip will also be forthcoming, but we're not going to hold up release of the issue until those bits are ready -- thanks for your patience.

As a final note, we're proud to add Tim Takahashi to our panel of technical consultants. Tim knows a lot about the 164 and 260-series cars as well as the newer 240s.

A lot of us will be seeing snow before this issue expires -- be careful, be safe, and stay warm until we meet again.

Phil Singher, Editor