I had this strange dream the other night where I was getting out of my car on what looked like the grounds of a Concours d'elegance when Charlie Rose, the late-night interviewer on Public TV, came up to ask about the car and why it's lasted so long. Either way, awake or in a dream, the car is a '72 1800ES with some 500,000 miles on it, so Rose's question seemed natural enough -- but then Colin Powell appeared and wanted to see the engine. That's when I woke up.

It's not completely surprising those two appeared up in a dream that night. Here on Purgatory Plantation, we watch Rose between the late news and falling asleep -- and over dinner that night, I'd been reading Newsweek's analysis of President Alfred E. Newman's cabinet, including a good bit about Colin Powell. I'd wondered if Powell still has his Volvo Amazons and would he drive them to Foggy Bottom?

Whatever. After waking from that dream, I needed to fall back to sleep.

Conjuring an answer to Charlie Rose's question seemed as good as counting sheep. I pictured the car being built in Sweden back in 1971 by a bunch of blonds and blondes in bellbottom pants and paisley shirts (under blue-and-white smocks, of course). First, I saw a team of them in the Volvo engine shop, then a bunch on the assembly line putting the engine into the car. I thought about the Swedish weather at the time. I thought about Feng Shui. It was taking awhile to get to sleep. I figured Charlie would want a thoughtful answer -- and I definitely don't think the old green car has done so well for so long, and come through so many near-misses and survived, simply because of my ministrations. It has to be a survivor in its own right or I doubt I'd still have it.

There were no thoughts of driving it forever when I bought it years ago; it has just happened. It makes no sense to replace it, though about five years used to be my average with cars, motorcycles and boats. None ever had the tenure this old Volvo's assumed in my life, but then it hasn't cost me much. Despite flogging it mercilessly racing to breaking stories as a newsman, innumerable straight-through blasts coast-to-coast and simply celebrating with verve countless winding two-lanes, it remains a solid, trustworthy machine. And I bet I could sell it tomorrow and get back all the money paid for it and have spent on it, not counting gas and oil. "Why is that?" I asked the ceiling fan over the bed in the dark. It just whispered and I couldn't make it out.

We all know about Monday cars, and maybe Friday cars, but little is said about the really, really good cars; those that prove to be far better than your usual Wednesday car. Could it have indeed been the weather in Sweden while it was being built? Were atmospheric pressures and ozone levels conducive to craftsmanship somehow? Where were the planets? Maybe it was harmonic convergence, or maybe Feng Shui. Others with the same vintage Volvos seemed to have a lot of car trouble.

My theory is admittedly half-baked, but then it did arrive in the dark before dawn. What the hell, maybe they did have a good lightning storm in Sweden just before my engine was assembled. Maybe the rearranged ions in the air after electrical storms gave the assemblers clear heads and calm hands. Perhaps it made them feel good so they were extra careful, working with a pleasant flow while putting my engine together. Then again, it was 1971 -- maybe they'd just smoked some weed and really got into the nitty-gritty of it. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know that engine went some 455,000 miles and still ran before its first and only rebuild. 50,000 miles later, it still runs just fine.

Maybe there was a waxing moon over Sweden when they first built my engine, and again a month later (this was before Just-in-Time inventories, remember). Perhaps when it came time to put it in the car and assemble the rest, there was a high pressure system over G”teborg, and another waxing moon, and everybody was feeling pretty good. Maybe it was Wednesday, too.

Hell, maybe it was some kind of Feng Shui -- maybe my green car came down the line right between a pair of red cars. Perhaps its doors were open in the right direction for some reason -- a fortuitous accident, of course. I doubt many square-head factory workers in 1971 were much aware of Feng Shui. Maybe there were a bunch of other favorable factors too, several elements in the fluctuating atmosphere that came together at the right times for my car. Why not? Waves at sea from three different distant storms come together to make one huge harmonic hump every now and then -- the "Rogue wave."

Think Charlie Rose would buy that? Maybe he would (he is on Public Television after all), though I suspect I'd have to purge some of the airy-fairy stuff out of the answer. I'd want it so even a Nebraska plumber would never blanch at my treatise, let alone Colin Powell. There just has to be something inherent in that car's makeup for it to have worn so well.

Meanwhile, it's time for bed again.

Photo by Michael Schultz

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