A couple months back, my wife indicated that she would not be opposed to the acquisition of a project car. I immediately started looking. I found a fairly decent 1800, but the owner changed his mind and wouldn't sell. I kept looking.

Then I found a Volvo model that I had never even heard of and was intrigued by it. It was a 1967 123GT. I found out everything I could about the model: what made it different from a 122S, how many were made (1500), etc. Well, if I couldn't have an 1800, I guess a 123GT would be a good substitute. The owner was not very mechanically inclined, but he was sincere and, I thought, honest.

I live in southern California. The car was in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The following things were cited as being wrong with the car:

• Tires need replacing
• Overdrive doesn't work
• Speedometer doesn't work
• Sunroof leaks
• Radio antenna loose
• Getting a little loud
• A little rust in the rockers

I decided to bite the bullet and commit to the car. I sent the guy a check for a grand and bought an airline ticket. He said that was great, but he was going to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, and I would have to pick the car up from his girlfriend. OK, I guess. I bought an oil filter and a speedometer cable for the trip home.

I got into Minneapolis-St. Paul airport at 11:30PM. I took a long cab ride to a motel a couple blocks from the address I was given. I got up early the next morning to go get the car. The three block walk in the brisk early morning air was refreshing and I was excited.

As soon as I saw the car, I almost turned around and left, but hey, this guy had a thousand of my hard-earned bucks. I decided to check it out. As soon as I got close to the car, the girlfriend came out of the apartment. She said she tried to put gas in it for me, but the car wouldn't start. She had jumper cables and we got it running. As soon as the car started, I was overcome by fumes. I had to get out of the car. It was loud, too. Well, I hadn't had much of a chance to check the car out and it looked pretty rough, but it was running and the girlfriend needed to leave for work. I gave her the rest of the money and she gave me the title.

I took the car to a muffler shop and had the exhaust rebuilt from the header back. I had new tires put on it for the trip home. The guys at the tire store couldn't use a hoist -- there was too much rust.

Rust? The jack points were completely gone! If you kicked the rockers, nothing but Bondo and rust fell off the car. There was also rust coming through the front of the hood and the engine compartment was a complete rusted mess.

I decided to take the air cleaner off the car and run it that way. The car had an ipd Weber conversion on it (just like the one reviewed a few issues ago). The air filter was rusted! Moisture had been trapped in the filter and had rusted the metal screen around the outside of the filter. I'm surprised any air got through it at all. Removing the filter helped the fumes problem.

I checked the oil -- it didn't even register on the dipstick. This car neither leaked nor used any oil, according to the owner. That was because there wasn't any oil in it.

Good thing I had some oil in the trunk. I put between one and two quarts in it at every gas stop. The inside mirror was a challenge, too -- it wouldn't stay put. I had to turn it sideways to get a view out of the rear window. The tach wasn't staying where it belonged, either. I tried to set it straight and the whole front bezel hit the floor. Listening to the radio was also a challenge. Because the antenna was loose, the ground was intermittent and the radio pretty much worked when it felt like it (not a big loss in North Dakota anyway). I did take a couple tapes with me for the trip ("Brings some tapes!" the previous owner said. "It has a great stereo in it."). The speakers were about two inches in diameter. Nothing sounded good.

I made it as far as Jamestown, North Dakota, that first day. I was upset with myself for letting the challenge of getting this car home get in the way of a little common sense. I was pretty well convinced that if I could just get to Billings, Montana, I would dump the car.

I got to Billings around noon the next day. I went to the hospital to check in with my father -- he was recently diagnosed with cancer and the timing of this trip was perfect. He was doing OK, so I headed home to work on the car a little.

I decided to see what I could do about the running temperature of the car. I bought a new thermostat and put it in. No change. Well, nothing was plugged up. Coolant flowed freely from both the radiator and the block when I drained them. It was really clean, too. So I went out and bought a new water pump. No change. I was getting pretty frustrated at that point, so I took the thermostat out. That fixed everything. Both the old thermostat and the new one were stuck shut. They were the correct ones for the car, too. Go figure.

I thought I would try to replace the speedometer cable next. Driving with just a tach wasn't much fun. When I crawled up under the dash, I discovered that the old cable wasn't even attached to the speedometer. I replaced the cable, but the speedometer still didn't work. Oh, well.

I had pretty much decided to dump the car at that point. It was a very bad investment. It wasn't even a true 123GT. Sure, it had badges on the side that said 123GT and a little Smith's tach on top of the dash, but everything else was just like a 122S. Even the title said 122 on it. I'm not really fond of the Weber setup either, although a little WD-40 freed up the accelerator pump linkage and the car was much more drivable. I also oiled the wick under the rotor in the distributor (it was very dry) and that helped, too (no mechanical advance?).

That night I decided to fire up my dad's computer and surf the net a little. Why I decided to look for another old Volvo is beyond me, but I did, and I found a 1961 PV544 in Billings. The listing was old, but I wrote down the phone number anyway. I called the next day and went to look at the car.

First things first: no rust. The car had been recently repainted, too. Not a good paint job, but it would do. The engine had been replaced with a B18B and an M40 transmission to match. It had been converted to 12 volts. The current owner had found the car sitting out in the toolies in a carport. It had new brakes, U-joints and a water pump. Half the bushings in the front end had been replaced. The guy had been working on the car and fully intended to restore it completely, but needed money. I bought it. He continued to work on the car until I picked it up. I gave him the 123GT. He really didn't want it, but he could drive it to the junkyard and get $50 for it.

A few days later, I hit the road again for Los Angeles. I couldn't fill the gas tank because gas would leak out on the ground after the tank got about two-thirds full. After I got the car home, I discovered that someone had gotten carried away tightening the gas line on the tank and broke the whole fitting loose. It used oil, but I planned on overhauling the engine anyway. The previous owner gave me a gasket set and a set of valve guides when I bought the car.

Well, that's my story. It started out pretty badly, but I ended up with a great car. I look forward to going home and working on it each day. Unfortunately, I don't usually get to.

By the way, my very first car (I was 16) was a 1961 Volvo PV544. I've had two 1965 122S's (one was an automatic), a 1967 123GT (as described above), a 1971 145S (modified to rocket status), and a 1978 245 (good car, but pretty boring when compared to the older models).

PS: The previous owner of the 123GT felt bad about the car he sold me and refunded a portion of the purchase price. He ended up selling it to me for what he paid for it. Like I said -- a nice enough guy, but not mechanically inclined.

Original story by John Erickson
Pencil drawing by Don Fronheiser
Photo of red 123GT by Michael Leslie
544 photo and graphics by Phil Singher