Volvo has been a part of my life for nearly all of my 42 years. From the '58 444 which my dad bought used when I was a toddler, to the '61 P1800 (VIN #490) which was my first car, to my current position on the Foreign Affairs Desk of this fine publication. Growing up in Detroit meant that owning Volvos made one something of an iconoclast or a maverick. As I matured, any new thing learned about the manufacturer of my favorite automobile was absorbed sponge-like.

Over the years some of what I learned was, at the very least, a way to spout trivia or make small talk: "See those hockey sticks and helmets that say JOFA on them? The company that made my car also owns the company that makes those..." The first Volvo truck I ever saw was in Maine in the mid-1970s. The driver patiently humored me while I took pictures and was allowed to sit in the cab. Heavy earthmoving equipment with the Volvo name appeared shortly after. It seemed like only a matter of time before I would see their farm tractors. Until very recently that day hadn't dawned.

Many an evening has been whiled away surfing the Internet in the past few years. Among the more challenging things I've searched for were websites devoted to Volvo farm machinery. Not an impossible task, but challenging anyway since most of what's out there isn't going to be in English. With some diligence I discovered that at least two tractors produced by Volvo employed familiar engines. The T425 used a B16C and the petrol version of the 320 came with a B18C. Both engines resembled those used in the cars of the day except that, in tractor form, they were detuned to 32 and 38 horsepower, respectively, and devices to govern engine speed were added, driven off the cam gear.

Being accustomed enough with reading languages I can't speak confidently, I began to search Swedish 'net classifieds for a B16- or 18-powered tractor. I visited antique tractor club websites written in Swedish and Danish. One Danish club site, Veteran Traktorens Venner, had a bulletin board that was (go figure!) in Danish. Skimming through this I found a bulletin in English posted by someone from Canada! Figuring it was worth a try, I sent a notice stating something like, "Middle-aged guy going through mid-life crisis seeking real sporty open air motoring. Must have lots of torque. Prefer red."

Okay, I'm kidding, but my request for leads on Volvo tractors powered by the engines most of us are familiar with eventually caught the eye of one Jorgen Sheuer. Jorgen was born in Denmark, but has lived in Mississippi for several decades. With previous occupations including machinist and educator, he just happens to run a tractor business in the town of Verona just outside of Tupelo. He rebuilt his first tractor at an age when most of us were trading baseball cards. His response to seeing my bulletin on that Danish website was to send an e-mail informing me that he could find a Volvo tractor for me.

We corresponded for a couple weeks and I learned that my first choice, the model 320 with the B18C engine, was not so common due to its limited production run. He suggested that the B16-powered units were more typical and so easier to get. The horsepower rating was practically the same, but the 320 weighed more and so offered very little advantage. Plus, he added, perhaps greasing the skids, it would not be that hard to re-power with a B18 or 20 if desired or needed.

Right! I wanted a tractor and it was clear that I knew next to nothing about them. Discussing Jorgen's communications with my wife Deb, it was determined that the estimated price was within the realms of our budget and that if I wanted a tractor, I could have one.

On a Wednesday morning I e-mailed Jorgen to ask him to begin searching for a tractor. Two days later, when I came home from the madness of a Friday and fired up the computer for my daily ritual of checking e-mail, there was a message from Jorgen waiting: "I've found your tractor."

I was stunned. For almost two years I'd been actively looking for information about Volvo tractors on the Internet and finding very little. Now someone comes along and locates an actual machine for me, halfway across the world in two days.

Another week or so and it, along with other tractors, would be taken to a Danish port to be loaded into containers for shipment. It was fascinating to read reports or call to find out what the latest news was. For a while Jorgen had little to report. Then an e-mail arrived with a scanned attachment from the shipping company showing the bill-of-lading which included the container that held my tractor.

The good ship ATLANTIC BRIDGE docked at New Orleans on October 6th bearing a container full of old European tractors and parts. I imagine more than one longshoreman scratched his head in bemusement on breaking the seal and opening the door of this big toy box. Customs completed their scrutiny as did the FDA, who demand that things like old tractors must be steam cleaned to eliminate the possibility of migrating pests.

With all that done, it was time to retrieve the machine from port and get it back to Verona. A truck was dispatched to New Orleans and returned to Verona with the bounty. JPEGs began to arrive in my e-mail to show me the treasure destined for the Volvo Ranch. What I saw was a well-used tractor which had been retrofitted with a modern canopy/roll bar assembly with flat-topped plastic fenders. Both Jorgen and I were expecting an enclosed weather cab that I thought I'd seen on some Internet examples. Something had not quite come across clearly in the communications from overseas. I felt the canopy was of no real use to me and Jorgen generously offered to replace the canopy with more proper-looking, but generic, round topped fenders.

The trucking company which hauls most of the machines for Verona Tractor had been regularly making two to four trips monthly to Detroit. As soon as my tractor hit the shore, those trips mysteriously dried up. I'd turned down a meet at Battle Creek early on, as I had intended to haul a car to Detroit on the same trip I'd hoped to return with the tractor.

A month and a half elapsed without even one run to southern Michigan. Weather was taking a turn for ice and snow. After a long-lasting, warmer-than-average autumn, the inevitable was at hand. Early in the week following Thanksgiving, I got a call from Bob at Bud Coley Trucking. Bob had been working hard the past two months to find a load northbound which had room for the tractor. Finally such a load was arranged. All I had to do was round up my truck and a borrowed trailer and meet the driver at a truck stop outside of Kalamazoo.

The morning of that meeting was a wet and snowy mess here at home, but the further south I drove, the more comfortable things became. Comfortable being a relative term when you've sentenced yourself, as I did, to over eight hours behind the wheel, perched on the scoliosis-inducing driver's seat of Stirling, our '77 Chevrolet farm truck, so named for the moss which appears annually in a trough-like dent on one of its fenders.

The trip down was uneventful and I met trucker Greg Scott at the prescribed stop. A friendly fellow, Greg climbed down from his big International and we walked back to the doors of the trailer. When he swung them open and I saw my machine for the first time in the flesh, all I could do was laugh maniacally for few minutes. I think Greg figured I was nuts.

He was probably right. But then, he should know: a plastic human skeleton occupies the passenger seat of his rig, dressed in a ball cap and a jacket. Holding a CB microphone, this creature sings songs or spews witty sayings at the clap of a hand. Oh! The things you see at truck stops.

Greg climbed on the tractor, shook the shifter lever for neutral and turned the key. A nearly instant start. We were both impressed. The rollback tow truck arrived in the meantime and backed up to the trailer, and Greg drove the tractor off his trailer and onto the rollback which in turn tilted its bed so that the tractor could be lowered to the ground. We traded and I then drove it onto my trailer for the ride home.

The homeward leg of the trip was uneventful until about the last 10 minutes. The truck's left muffler dropped off at Torch River Bridge. I knew this was coming just didn't know when. Really thankful it didn't occur two hours earlier. Another half hour of this racket and my eardrums would surely be bleeding. Let's just say that any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

At a glance, the machine is about the size of a Ford 8N. As near as I can tell, it is a 1957 or '58 model. The B16C engine is what you may expect a B16 to look like except that it is equipped with a twin-belt driven hydraulic pump which is primarily used to lift the three-point hitch, and it also has the aforementioned governor housed within a timing gear cover unique to its industrial and agricultural applications. Amusing, at least to me, are the caps for the various oil reservoirs: those on the governor, the gearbox and the reservoir for the hydraulic lift are identical to the one on the valve cover. Also, the fuel tank cap interchanges with those from an Amazon or PV.

My tractor has a straight-cut four-speed gearbox. I've just finished changing out the old gear lube in this box. It demands nearly four gallons of the stuff. Later units came with five forward gears. I'm almost afraid to find out how much gear lube the differential wants...

A little too late in the story for my high school journalism teacher to call this good composition, I should mention that Sweden's largest car maker did not always make agricultural equipment. My information indicates that the first tractors with the alchemic iron symbol appeared in 1941. Volvo had a long-term relationship with the Eskilstuna-based tractor builder Bolinder-Munktell (BM) from whom they purchased engines for earlier motor vehicles. BM's first tractor appeared in 1913. The alliance of the two companies remained in good standing and by the 1950s Volvo had a controlling interest in BM. By the mid-1950s, the T425 was introduced and offered in both Volvo and BM dress with nicknames of Krabat and Terrier, respectively. Mine is badged as a BM but "Volvo" appears on various castings including those for the transmission and rear axle.

All in all I consider myself fortunate to be as pleased as I am with what amounts to a sight-unseen purchase. Sure, I saw pictures but it isn't the same as inspecting the real thing. Jorgen was right though: it doesn't smoke and it does run well.

The carburetor will need rebuilding, but I've learned that this British-made Zenith VME26 was also used in Austin A35s and Nash Metropolitans. The exhaust is bent back a bit and the right headlamp was likely torn off the grille in the same incident. I've temporarily re-hung the lamp using a blank metal switch plate. Jorgen is routing a new exhaust to me and the new Bosch headlamps are safely stored in their boxes for installation after restoration. The body could use a strip and repaint, but more importantly, this tractor is fairly ready to work now. I hope to move snow in the winter and increase the size of our garden this spring. Maybe I'll even rig up my engine hoist on the three-point hitch for ease in pulling engines out in the yard where the parts cars sit.

A good friend of mine from the Saab camp has often ribbed me for loving "those damned tractors," as he derisively refers to Volvo automobiles. Now that I have the real tractor, I wonder if when I visit him next I'll find a Draken or Viggen jet in his backyard.

Check out Niklas Larsson's Krabat page at http://home8.swipnet.se/~w-81410/t425.htm.