As April was ending, it was again time to start looking for a new summer car. In 2020 I had an old Volvo 850 called Siiri, which was just like my first ever car, in 2021 I rented Egon, a Volvo 960 from my friend. In 2022 and 2023 I drove Alice, a Volvo 940, which took me through every single current and former municipality in Finland during one summer. As I ran out of money to fix the 30 year old lady, I sold it in the end of summer.
Let’s just say, I wasn’t the least bit enthusiastic about the summer of 2024. The summer of 2023 had already been a disappointment in terms of photography and I really missed my dear old Alice. I even contacted the buyer to try to buy her back, but he refused stating that the car was just too good to sell.
I looked and looked, but found nothing interesting. My first word was Volvo and I had so far had seven of them. I looked at old 850’s and V70’s, but none of them really felt like my car unlike all the others I had owned. As I am fond of 1990’s cars, I even searched for station wagons older than 1995 costing less than 2000 euros. I got 25 results: 24 Volvos and one Mercedes.
I finally chose the one which seemed the least red flag, a 1996 Volvo 850. The owner told me, that it had starting issues, but was otherwise in good shape. So I travelled to Pori to have a look at it.
And eventually I returned home with this one. A cousin of Saara and Siiri, I called it Iiris. I paid 1200 for it, and it did indeed seem like an ok car despite the starting issue and the fact that the fuel gauge didn’t work.
I had a plan. I would again try to visit all current and former municipalities of Finland during one summer to prove, that any old car could do this and Alice was no special. And after that, unless I found the spark again, I would retire from urban exploration after the 2024 season.