As part of our 50th year celebrations we were looking for a way to 'capture the flavour' of our earlier years.  One idea was to display a Volvo from the days when the Hutton brothers first began importing the cars in the late 1950's.  The problem that became apparent though was that not too many examples in a suitable condition where available.  The answer came in the form of an advertisement for a 1965 Volvo Amazon in need of restoration! 

 We must be mad!  Just look at these pictures!

 What decided the issue, however, was that this gem was one of our original demonstrator cars from our 'K' Cars days!

 She's only done 38,530 miles from new. 

The project officially started on the 19th Feb 2008 watch this space for up-dates........

Monday 25th Feb 2008...attempted to start engine. replaced spark plugs, ht leads and powered up starter motor...nothing!

Tuesday 26th Feb 2008...fitted temporary coil and some creative wiring, primed fuel pump and cranked...again nothing. filled carb float with fuel and primed fuel again and....PRESTO!!  we have a surprisingly sweet sounding engine, no major knocks and firing on all cylinders.  not bad considering the car hasn't run for the best part of 30 years!

Thursday 28th Feb 2008...engine now removed and starting to strip panels off and electrics, ancillaries etc all out in order to get at the rot!  Pictures below show the state of play at the moment - looks horrendous but there is a lot of very good metal in areas that are traditionally very poor.  The wings, inner wings etc all have some rot but can be 'easily' repaired/replaced.  Keep watching!

Wednesday 19th March 2008....very busy in the workshops lately so haven't had as much time as we would like on the project but Ken Hutton has driven things forward by repairing one of the doors and we have just received the brand new inner wings which will form much of the strength of the front sections.

Thursday 27th March 2008....we've now entered the next phase of the re-build which has seen the shell of the car go over to Ken Hutton's own workshop where he will spend many hours cutting away poor steel and replacing with new sectioned which will be fabricated on site in his workshop.  What a way to spend your retirement!

Tuesday 22nd April 2008......some of the major restoration work under the bonnet and front inner wings has been carried out.  First the rotten metal and rust is removed and the new metal is welded into place.  Thankfully there is lots of very good, strong metal to fasten the new metal to!  The pictures below show the transformation!