Keith’s Blog: The SCM Volvo is Gone

For $21,000, someone has become the new owner of the SCM Volvo 122S.

Our friends at Avant-Garde Collection listed it for us on Bring a Trailer.

“Being an automatic really held it back. If it had been a stick with overdrive it would easily have brought another $10,000,” said the owner, Matt Crandall (BaT moniker: 911r).

An original-paint car, it was the most honest 122 I have seen. We had Cameron Lovre do the necessary upgrades at his shop, Swedish Relics, in Hillsboro, OR. After the suspension and interior were tweaked, it was about as good as a mostly-stock 122 can be.

We purchased it because as I continued to be challenged by driving a manual, I wondered how much satisfaction I could find driving a vintage automatic.

The answer was, “plenty.”

While the Borg-Warner will never be praised for its crisp shifting or responsiveness, I found it pleasant to not have to worry about putting in the clutch while driving around town. Further, I learned that once you were on the highway, you are normally in top gear anyway, making shifting irrelevant.

That’s not to say that a manual isn’t simply more fun to drive. I took our last 122S, with manual and overdrive, on a 1000-mile classic car tour four years ago and it was a delight. The spacious trunk allowed Bradley to bring his favorite pillow. The factory under-dash a/c blew ice cold. We had the same suspension mods done to that one, and we surprised more than one Italian exotic by passing them on the inside of a turn on a four-lane highway.

However, the automatic was good but not great. Our time with it had come to an end. It had taught us that we could indeed have fun in a two-pedal classic. We became the totemic heroes of the slushbox gang.

But other automatics that have more to teach us have entered our lives. They include the Mercedes SL 55 AMG, the V12 Jaguar E-type and the Porsche 928. Each is vastly more powerful and sophisticated than the 122. Not as charming or endearing, but in the end more fun.

Small-displacement automatic classics are desperately in need of modern four-or-five speed automatic conversions. I know that four-speed conversions exist for the E-type. (But why would I want to ruin its originality?) For the Volvo, I couldn’t find anything practical.

Which was a good thing. I lost $4,000 on the car as it was, but I view that as my tuition to learn what a small-displacement classic with an automatic is all about. Further, we needed to spend as necessary to make the car fun to drive. What’s the point of being behind the wheel of a vintage car with a clapped-out suspension?

The ex-SCM 122S is completely on the button, and I hope the new owner enjoys it as much as I did.