I love Volvos. I had a 77 Volvo 240 DL that I drove 300K miles. It as the ultimate winter car--could cruise at 60 mph over snowpacked roads and would start after being left out at 30 below for a week. No AWD, rear wheel drive, and good Vredestein snow tires. It was a sad day when I finally sold her.
I rented a XC 70 (see pic above) on a fall trip to Jackson Hole and I was not impressed with it's performance, although it sure looked cool. Now I'm seeing these cars all over town as they seem to have become a car of choice, even though Ford owns Volvo now.
So, what do folks think of this car? To answer that, we have this several month old car review for the new XC 70, with some great commentary on why we need this overweight AWD car, or that Arc Teryx jacket. It's a good read, and tends to favor the V-70, the stripped down version of the XC. Thanks to Those Responsible for the link.
When I was climbing and in the outdoor business, we always had the best clothes and gear. But when climbers started climbing with lycra, it was the last straw for some. My friend John, an extremely talented climber, tossed his expensive technical jacket and wore a $5 golf windbreaker, the kind with the two stands of cotton cord piping along both sides of the cheap metal zipper, that he bought at a second hand store in Berlin NH, just to piss off the fashion climbers.
High tech clothes, overcompensating cars. I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy them, but ask, when is enough enough?
There more on this theme over at Fragments From Floyd.
