Welcome back, one and all. I recently had the pleasure of appearing on L.A.'s "Drive Time" radio show, hosted by John Dinkel and Joe Bergman. John is a former editor of Road & Track magazine and was interested by how an automotive "publication" (we never decided whether the term "magazine" applied or not) can work on the Internet. The question arose: "You can't be making much money with this -- why do you do it?"

The answer is pretty simple: we like to own and drive old Volvos, and we want them to keep out of the crushers as much as possible. People who want to keep driving thirty and forty year old cars need a support system and access to all the resources they can get. The more old cars stay on the road, the more aftermarket suppliers will keep producing and stocking parts for them. This site is our way of providing (and receiving) support and of connecting fans of old Volvos to the resources they need.

It's simple self-interest (also, it's fun!).

Material wanted:
Our readers are the greatest resource of all. The collective knowledge and experience you people have is many, many times what we have "in house" -- and I really hope you'll be willing to share it with the rest of us. Perhaps you've done a great restoration or installed interesting modifications, maybe you know how to repair some part of a car, or you might just have an entertaining story to tell about your Volvo -- please let us in on it. We'll help you write it if you need the help; English doesn't have to be your first language.

Let me clarify a point: material is not limited to pre-1976 Volvos. We put that restriction on the "Ask the Experts" column, because those are the Volvos we know most about, and because there are a number of other forums on the 'net that deal very well with the newer cars. Articles and photos, however, can be about any Volvo, or about any general automotive subject that might apply to our cars.

Complaints department:
We sometimes get mail from readers who are less-than-pleased with this magazine. The most common gripe: the Classified Ads are out of date. It is very frustrating for someone to see a long-sought-after part for sale, only to find that the part was sold months earlier, or that the E-mail address given no longer works.

We place the ads ourselves, rather than letting you do it automatically, so that we can send you an acknowledgment to check that your E-mail works. Experience shows us that most ads run several issues, so we don't make them expire automatically -- it may take a long time to find or sell a particular item. We do purge the ads periodically -- anyone with a dead E-mail address or who doesn't respond to our notices has the ad removed. We will try to do this at the mid-point of every issue from now on. Please do try to respond promptly, and -- even better -- let us know as soon as your ad changes or is no longer required. It's not much trouble for us to make changes -- we'd much rather do that than have garbage on the site!

In this issue:
Every issue seems to take on a character of its own, and this one took on an electrical bent. Veteran pro-rally and road racer David Hueppchen provides us with a primer on high-performance lighting in All About Fog Lights, then we take a look at understanding Battery and Starter Problems. In our "Road Test" feature, we report on the Crane Cams XR700 Ignition system -- you will never have to change your points again. In our final featured article, When Old Volvos Were New, we take a stab at the question "If old Volvos are so great, why did hardly anyone in the US buy them back then?"

Of course, there's lots more that's new in the other departments. As always, technical articles from the previous issue have found their way into the Archive.

I hope everyone has a great time with this issue. Until next time, then, keep 'em out of the crushers!

Phil Singher, Editor