"The Oldest Volvo 66 In The World'

[andrew]

I've just bought this month's edition of "Practical Classics", not, I must confess, for any Daf related information but for some Renault 4 history, which is my other classic car love. In spite of this Gallic interest, my eye was caught by a piece on page 29, by Graham Aiken, of Eastbourne. He claims to own the oldest Volvo 66 "in the world" (Jeremy Clarkson voice OFF!) and this car was discovered by our very own "Belting Along" editor, in a lock-up garage. I would post a picture of it here, but my Flicr account is either redudndant or disconnected. Maybe Richard can put the article in the next magazine.......

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

Yes, this has been pointed out to me by someone else, so I read it in the shop.

Graeme is/was a member of the club, and a couple of years we featured his car in our magazine, especially after its starring appearance at the NEC classic car show. He also showed it at the Festival of the Unexceptional, very successfully. The picture in PC is from that event.

I/we have also reported about the car in our magazine from when I owned it.

Graeme must have sent his story in to PC a long time ago, because he no longer owns the car! He sold it to someone some months ago (but I understand that they are now thinking of moving it on)

The story was almost correct - reads well. I didn't actually find it in a lock-up garage, I saw it advertised on the internet by a chap who had bought it with a view to entering it into some sort of historic racing. But he/they couldn't really fathom the Variomatic, so basically abandoned the idea, entered it into an auction, where it didn't attract any interest, so he advertised it elsewhere.

I felt the need to save the car and mechanically it was pretty good - it needed a new pulley on the transmission, and general fettling.

The floor/sills were incredibly solid and original. The only think really letting it down was cosmestic paintwork - it must have been standing under a tree for a long time, and birds deposits had plainly had significant effect.

I knew I couldn't keep the car so advertised it and Graeme bought it off me. He then spent a significant amount of money on a wonderful respray, and the car looks fabulous.

[newwy66]

That's interesting. Can anyone put a photo up? Would love to see it.

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

I haven't got any of my photos to hand, but it appeared for sale recently on Car and Classic, and this is the advert:

www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1042794

Graeme, who bought it off me, spent a small fortune on getting the paintwork all redone and it looks absolutely stunning.
I got the mechanicals sorted out and eventually, it went very well indeed.

I would have liked to have kept the car but it is just not practical for me to have more than one DAF at a time, and I seem to be committed to air-cooled!