As long-time owners of a 122S, Marsha and I have been ipd customers for years. More significantly, we owned the car for years before discovering ipd, so we remember what it was like to try to maintain an older Volvo without such a resource. It's been a very gratifying relationship ever since.

Now that we were spending a few days in Portland, Oregon, ipd Volvo Division Leader Scott Hart graciously invited us to tour their facility and have lunch afterwards. We easily found their building on Ainsworth Circle, at the base of the I-205 bridge immediately east of the Portland airport.

On display outside the lobby doors is ipd founder Richard Gordon's storied 1971 142E. Richard started the company in 1963, specializing in parts for Volvo and Ford Anglia. The Volvo parts proved the more popular and rapidly became the main focus. At the time, Volvos were promoted in the US as sports cars that just happened to have four seats, and Richard was soon developing performance enhancements and racing Volvos in various events. Naturally, he marketed the products that worked well in his own Volvo projects.

As Volvo's popularity grew, so did ipd's, but a real turning point came when Richard took a trip to Los Angeles driving his new project car, the aforementioned 142E. Coming upon the offices of Road & Track magazine, he went inside on a whim and introduced himself. Would they, perhaps, be interested in taking a look at this modified car?

Not only were they interested, they gave it a road test and featured it in an article in the June 1974 issue of the magazine. This boxy Volvo could more than hold its own against smaller cars like the Alfa Romeo coupes, BMW 2002 or the new Datsun 240Z. It was an eye-opener to many, and put ipd "on the map" with motoring enthusiasts across North America.

I had no clear expectations of what we'd see on the tour, but two things struck me right away. First, the company employs fewer people than I had expected. Second, those people are busy -- efficiency, expertise and enthusiasm are basic qualities for all who work here. Although this is a tightly run ship, employees are encouraged (and rewarded) to pursue their own projects, develop new products and generally use brainpower to contribute to the company's, and their own, success. It's a place for the energetic; clearly not a haven for drudges.

ipd is best known for its suspension products; a line that's diversified from Volvos to heavy vehicles (their anti-sway bars are original equipment on several makes of large trucks), motor homes, "Sport Utes" and -- to my astonishment -- handling mods for Cadillacs. I had imagined these systems to be manufactured to company specs by outside contractors, and was surprised to discover that they're built in-house. We were shown the dynamometer on which new bar designs are tested with stresses far exceeding what they would ever encounter in actual use; the most recent bar (for the S/V/C70) was refined until it withstood 1,000,000 cycles on the machine before being released for sale.

Of course, nobody's perfect. ipd's warehouse space is large, but not infinite. The policy is to keep a two-month's supply of product on hand; that might be hundreds of parts, or it might be only one -- if you happen to need two of that infrequently ordered item, you'll have to wait. Occasional mistakes are made in shipping or stocking parts, and, once in a while, a product is introduced that falls short of quality expectations and is subsequently withdrawn. These are regular human beings; they just happen to try harder than most.

As the tour continued, several mechanics worked at fitting anti-sway bars on a motor home in a huge service bay -- ipd has a growing number of authorized installers across the country, but these techs were busy developing a new set of bars for that particular chassis. We'd met Teague Oviatt a few days earlier at The Works in Eugene; now we found him busy receiving several pallets of incoming parts. Kits are assembled at a different workstation, and there's a space for storing odd items to be sold at the annual Open House and other sales, including a rack of wheels that had originally been on ipd project cars. Scott has a small area set aside for his "experiments" with various space-age materials, including carbon fiber composites similar to those used in stealth aircraft.

Back in the office spaces, customer service reps were taking their turns manning the phones behind the counter in the lobby. Yes, one can just walk in and buy items on-the-spot. The walls are lined with historic Volvo pictures and plaques awarded by a variety of Volvo clubs and organizations. A B20 motor with "classic" ipd mods sits on an engine stand at the foot of stairs leading up to the offices where catalogs, newsletters and flyers are designed, and where Richard still presides over his company's operations.

As one might expect, the company parking lot contains some interesting cars, not least of which (to us, anyway) is Teague's 1968 122S, a second Cameron Lovre-modified D-Jetronic conversion (Cameron has since sold the first car he fitted out this way). There's a Ford Expedition wearing custom body panels, and the current ipd project Volvo, the V70 Cross County. Those of you who have seen the television commercials comparing the relative availability of AWD and cupholders between Volvo and a competing marque will appreciate the decal across the top of this car's rear window: "Speed Kills -- drive a Subaru."

Portland traffic being what it is, we didn't have the chance experience this car's capabilities (or try out the cupholders) as Scott drove us to a restaurant for lunch. We had a relaxed chat about Volvo projects, computers, the Internet and our experiences with, and impressions of, ipd. I told Scott, quite truthfully, that without ipd's support, we might well not be driving our great old Volvos every day; certainly, driving them would be much less fun.

We finally had to let Scott get back to business -- his schedule is as packed as anyone else's there, and a meeting beckoned -- and thanked him for his hospitality. Little did we know that our visit had already set his mental gears turning, and that our visit (and this publication) would be prominently featured in the next ipd Newsletter -- surprise!

To be fair, I must say that no, we don't patronize ipd exclusively for all our Volvo parts; yes, one time we had to exchange a part that had been mislabeled and turned out to be the wrong size inside its box, and, unfortunately, some items we used on our Amazon are no longer available now that we'd like them for our 1800S project. ipd has moved with the times to support the latest models as well as the old, and it is only possible for them to do so much at once.

Overall, though, our experiences with ipd have been overwhelmingly positive. If you own a classic Volvo or want something "special" for your newer model, I don't think you'll go far wrong by giving them a try.

More info on the web: www.ipdusa.com

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