They sure are, this week we had a death in the family, an old friend was sent to its final resting place, our beloved Eurotank, the car which took us throughout Europe last year. Eurotank spent its last days in München with Jack, hauling photography gear and beery germans around until the clutch finally gave way and the deregistration papers were sent back to the Swedish. Not quite sure what to do with a undrivable, unregistered car in a foreign country, Jack called the local wreckers. Some things are exactly the same the world over and of course, the guy was dodgy dodgy dodgy.
(translated into aussie for you)
"So we have this Volvo, what do we do with it?"
"oohhh maaaaatee…. ill tell you what, bring her on in and ill scrap it for you, for free.. but your breaking my balls here"
"did I mention it still actually turns over AND has 60L of fuel in it?"
"60L of fuel you say…. how about I come pick it up for you mate"
And so, old german bogan mate comes by with what looks like a truck designed for a rubbish skip…
So thats it, the end, the dream is over. So for a brief history of our fine vehicle… it all started a little under a year ago in Sweden, and the three of us had recognised the need for an auto given our absolutle lack of knowledge about the baltic countries we were about to face… so a bunch of phone calls later, Id organised myself a swedish ID number which gives me the right to buy a car, off who turned out to be a VERY dodgy swedish bloke, your an out of work builder are you maaate? we call them dole buldgers in australia. Anyway I was running out of time and hes was the best offer so around 25,000 SEK later we owned a car and insurance to drive it anywhere we wanted… except kosovo.
And together and apart we went on to drive this thing through every highway and backwater from Estonia to Portugal to Spain. Having such a big car was a travellers paradise, always room to have a sleep or if we met a bunch of likeminded travellers in the hostel, we all climbed in the car and went to the next town together, often hanging out for days afterwards. Middle of Europe was some good days alright. Its hard to list all the good times without boring you stiff but im thinking of being turned back at the latvian border for not having OWNERSHIP papers, bribing polish cops, blowing a tyre at 190 on the autobahn, 6 people in a full car in spain or hauling a car full of wood through the romanian countryside. I myself spent the most time in the car and I became firmly attached to it but anyone who rode it in for an hour got a feeling for the legend of eurotank. And what of eurotank mark II? Its called a train and thats what a ride these days, the deniros are running too low to even afford an old golf… untill the SEK starts flowing in that is… another volvo? a mission van? a future adventure for sure.
If you want to relive the good times once more, theres all the final ending shots in the gallery, along with a collection of the finest days of our white, Swedish Volvo 940. Someone last night said to me "aint nothing better to spend your money on than travel" and with all the petrol money we spent I couldnt agree more: every kroon, every forint and every euro well worth it, these are the stories Ill be telling my kids, im sure of it.
