The Adventures of Dwight and Loretta Lindholm

Dwight and Loretta Lindholm have decided that it’s time for another adventure. So they are taking advantage of the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program and will fly to Sweden in April to take delivery of their 2011 Volvo XC70. This is their second overseas delivery with Volvo. The first time was January 2004 when they picked up a Volvo V70 wagon and drove 2500 miles throughout Europe in snowstorms.

For most folks, the idea of travelling to another country to take delivery of a new car may seem like a big adventure, but for the Lindholms, now both 80 years old, it pales in comparison to the extended cruise they took to the South Pacific with their five children and two dogs in the early ‘80s.

“It was just a lark,” said Dwight. “I woke up at six o’clock in the morning on Oct. 24, 1976, and the idea of putting my family on a boat and sailing around the world just occurred to me. I thought about it for an hour; then I nudged my wife and thought this would make short work of the idea. She listened and said, ‘That sounds like a good idea. Let’s do it!’”

The next step was to tell all five children. “They all happened to be at our beach house at that time. We took each one aside and told them about the idea. Children 17 years and younger will agree to anything five years down the line. I told them to give me two to three days before I commit to a date, and within a few days, we chose June 12, 1982.”

What makes this story even more unusual is that Dwight had never set foot on a sailboat, and Loretta doesn’t even know how to swim. “It took us five and a half years of preparation before we left. I had never been in a sailboat until I was 47 years old. I decided to take the trip before I ever got in a sailboat!” said Dwight.

They say the devil is in the details, and the Lindholms knew how important it was to master the art of sailing before attempting a trip of this magnitude. A four-month run to Mexico in the Golden Viking II 51’ Force 50 sailboat would serve as a test of their sailing skills. Dwight chose the name “Golden Viking” as representative of his home and his heritage. “’Golden’ was for the state of California and ‘Viking’ was for my heritage; I’m from Minnesota. Originally my relatives came over in 1868 from Sweden. In fact, they came from a place close to Halmstad which is about 100 miles south of Gothenburg called Långaryd. We have relatives there. We are part of the largest “mapped” families in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records with over 100,000 names.”

Golden Viking I was a 29’ Erickson which the Lindholms kept on charter with the Calipso Fleet in Marina Del Rey. “As I look back on it, Golden Viking I was almost like child’s play. We went back and forth to Catalina on weekend trips; and this included six trips in small craft advisory bad weather. In October of 1978 we ordered the Golden Viking II to be built in Taiwan. After that, the whole project took on a magnitude of damn serious business. As it was being built, I spent my weekends in marine stores, reading. During the week I devoured all of the yachting magazines and must have read fifteen or twenty books. A lot of office time was taken up in telephone calls, exploring different types of equipment and system strategy on the boat. In the two and one-half years that followed before we left for Mexico on December 16, 1981, Golden Viking II went out eighty times including sixteen overnights on anchor out at the Channel Islands.”

There was much to do to prepare. Dionne (Dee Dee) and Dwight got qualified with advanced licenses in Ham radio, and Loretta received a general license. It took four and a half months to get a general license and another four and a half months to get the advanced license.

Dwight insisted that everyone take Scuba Diving lessons, which consisted of seven three-hour sessions for each of them and another seven ocean dives. “Finally, six of us, excluding Loretta who didn’t swim, were certified scuba divers. Kathy at age 11, was the youngest to have ever been certified by the school. That almost broke my back. It seemed like every week, one or the other of the kids wasn’t up to speed with the pool work or the ocean dives, and I had to come in in the middle of the week to have them do the lesson over to keep them up to speed with the group,” said Dwight.

Dwight and Loretta took the Coast Guard Auxiliary Seamanship course followed by a Coastal Pilot course, followed by another examination that, according to Dwight, “only half the class passed.” Douglas and Dwight took a 25-hour private tutorial course in celestial navigation. They would not have the luxury of any fancy electronic navigation systems.

It was Dwight’s concerns about pirates that determined his choice in a guard dog. “At that time there was some danger of pirates for fisherman along the coast of Mexico, so before we went to Mexico for the ‘shakedown cruise’ for four months, I investigated guard dogs and brought a Rottweiler puppy. She was on the boat the entire time.”

As with all best laid plans, there were a few hiccups. The Golden Viking II arrived in April but without its main mast, which had been mistakenly dropped in Oakland by the carrier ship. “All of this delayed the thing six weeks before I got this half-ton mast trucked down here to Los Angeles. I might say, getting it off the ship in San Pedro and all twenty-six tons trucked up to Oxnard was quite a major undertaking.”

On July 1, 1979 Golden Viking II was put under sail and was moved out from the dock 25 out of 26 weekends.

“Getting down to the wire, we’d overlooked first aid, so one month before we left in May 1982, I took a twenty-four hour three-day weekend crash course in offshore emergency medicine. I was intrigued by the fact that of the twenty students in the class, I was the only one who had immediate plans to take an offshore voyage. And only one other person in the class had ever been off shore,” said Dwight.

The big day had finally arrived. On June 15, 1983, Dwight and Loretta and their five children: Douglas (22), Dionne (21), Jeanne (18), Philip (14), Kathy (13) and the two dogs, Asta and Tammy, set sail for an extended cruise that lasted over 13 months. It took an entire month at sea to reach French Polynesia and the family spent two and a half months visiting six inhabited islands of the Marquesas which has no tourist accommodations. “This is a place you only visit by private yacht,” said Dwight. “The Marquesas Islands are very mountainous but hunting and fishing are good. The islands vary from very pristine, barefoot, horseback, outrigger canoes and living off the land to a little more advanced with a few cars, jeeps and small stores. We visited Hiva, Oa, Fatu Hiva, Tahuata, Ua Pu, Nuka Hiva and Ua Huka.”

They spent seven weeks in the Tuamotu group and five months in Tahiti’s Society Islands (from November 20, 1982 until April 19, 1983). “We were at sea 26 days going down and 40 coming back,” said Dwight. Despite no major mechanical failures until the transmission went out at the very end of the trip, the Golden Viking II survived seven tropical cyclones while in the French Polynesia and five were hurricane strength.

When asked what prompted a trip of this magnitude, Dwight says he is pretty sure he was experiencing a mid-life crisis. “I think in looking back, and at the time I joked about it, but I think it was a midlife crisis. I was 46 years old and considered myself a failure …I wasn’t a complete failure as I had just become a biographer in the 1946 edition of “Who’s Who in America.” Moreover, having come to California in 1957 with very little, I had made enough money to finance this great sabbatical. It was just that I had big objectives for my life, and I had accomplished none of them; and that is what a midlife crisis is about. You are not going to become the president and the CEO of the company. It doesn’t mean you are a failure, but in your mind’s eye you have to give up the thing or things you have been shooting for all your life; and that is what a midlife crisis is. Women have them more than a generation ago because they are also in competitive positions.”

Dwight is keenly aware that he is married to a very special woman. It is hard to believe that Loretta agreed to live on a boat with her family for more than a year without ever knowing how to swim. Dwight just chuckles and said, “I wanted to get a life insurance policy on her, and she said ‘no life insurance policy is a good insurance policy for me.’ As I look back on it, I sometimes don’t believe we did it.”

What does this once-in-a-lifetime adventure mean to Dwight and his family? Dwight writes: “We have experienced joy, love, hate, sorrow and terror together. Anyone could have quit and gone home. Each one at one time or the other felt like it. All stayed to the end.”

28 years later, the Lindholms have 13 grandchildren and continue to be grateful for the time they spent together on their South Pacific voyage. While many of his children would like to have a similar adventure with their respective families, it “doesn’t seem to be on the radar screen for any of them. This is something that not very many people can do.”

Picture: 1982 The Golden Viking at Ensenada Grande Island, just north of La Paz (3/13/82)

Picture: 1982 Easter Family picture at San Diego Harbor

If you are looking for an adventure and are not quite ready for an extended cruise to the South Pacific, you might want to consider the Volvo Overseas Delivery program. Here are just a few benefits:
A huge savings off the MSRP compared to taking delivery of a Volvo that has already arrived here in the USA.
Roundtrip tickets for two to Europe
One free night at the Radisson SAS, a first class hotel in Gothenburg, Sweden, home of Volvo
Fifteen day European Car Insurance coverage including Swedish temporary registration of your new vehicle
Tour of the Factory Delivery Center in Gothenburg, Sweden and a complimentary Swedish Meatball lunch
Travel packages and much, much more

Give us a call at 818/577-2500 and get plans underway for your adventure of a lifetime.

A Very Special Overseas Delivery

For Christina Walsh, taking an Overseas Delivery of their 2010 Volvo S40 was a bittersweet experience.

On July 6, 2010, Christina along with her husband, Michael, and their son, Ethan, set out for Goteborg, Sweden. Christina was exciting and sad at the same time. On some level, it felt like she was coming home because she has such a strong connection to Sweden.

Christina’s mother, Maja Lisa Carlsson, was born in Sweden,. For the last six years of her life, she suffered from Alzheimer’s, so she wasn't able to visit her homeland, and last year she passed away. Christina wanted to fulfill her mother's wish to be buried in Sweden, but because the winters there are so long and the ground stays frozen, she had to wait until spring to take her mother’s ashes to her final resting place.

It was actually her mother’s best friend, Brit Burton, who convinced Christina to take the Overseas Delivery of their Volvo since they were in the market to buy a new car anyway. Brit knows a lot about Volvo, because her father, Gustav Larson, along with his business partner, Assar Gabrielsson, founded the Volvo line of cars in 1924. Larson was a technician at a ball bearing company and Gabrielsson was an economist. Somehow they met and launched the Swedish line of cars known as Volvo.



According to the Volvo Museum Brochure, Gabrielsson and Larson coined the expression “Building Cars the Volvo Way” because they were designed and built to be different from other automobile manufacturers.

So Christina took the advice of her mother’s closest friend and planned an Overseas Delivery of a 2010 Volvo S40 and brought her mother’s ashes along with her to Sweden. The experience felt like nothing less than a fairy tale.

The Walsh’s were very impressed with the royal treatment Volvo provides its Overseas Delivery customers. “When we got off the plane, there was a limo driver waiting at the airport with our name on a card. Then we were whisked off to the factory for an amazing breakfast and a tram tour of the factory. Fascinating! We saw the James Bond Volvo! We got to see the 550 robots that actually put the cars together. The robots themselves are made in another part of Sweden. They do 99% of all the welding on the cars. It was so amazing to see so much, but we weren’t allowed to see everything because there were curtains in the paint area. So there’s so much more research going on there,” said Christina.

The following day, the Walsh family visited the Volvo Museum, which is not far away from the factory. “I highly recommend going to the Museum. We saw the wind systems in the water that power Volvo Factories; and green renewable energy. I was impressed with their attitude and way of thinking about things. If they have an idea, and they try something and it doesn’t work, they just move on and build on what they learned. I’ve actually started to bring this line of thinking into my own projects I’m working on here in my efforts to clean up the Rocketdyne site. It’s a different perspective,” said Christina. Building on core values of “Quality” and “Safety,” Volvo has been a pioneer in environmental policy since 1972 and over the years has made this a major priority.

While in Sweden, Christina reunited with her mother’s 86 year old sister, Margrit Larsson, who lives in Stockholm. They also received a slightly escalated tour due to her connections with the founders. “My son got to drive a giant Volvo bus, and I got to drive a truck on the private Volvo track. Did you know Volvo Trucks owns Mack trucks? It was such an education for all of us. Did you know that Volvo was the first car company to invent the seatbelt but chose not to patent it so that it could be open to the world immediately? Did you know Volvo was also part of the aerospace industry? There’s a whole segment in the museum dedicated to Volvo’s involvement in marine and aero engines and trucks.

Over the course of her trip, the Walsh’s put 1265 miles on their new Volvo. Christina said it had been over six years since her last visit to Sweden, but vows that she will travel there more often with her family. “I got to see ‘my rock’ that my grandfather dedicated to me when I was seven years old and showed my son where my name was carved into it. It was so great that my son was able to really get in touch with his Swedish heritage.”

Here are just a few benefits of the Volvo Overseas Delivery program:

• A huge savings off the MSRP compared to taking delivery of a Volvo that has already arrived here in the USA.
• Roundtrip tickets for two to Europe
• One free night at the Radisson SAS, a first class hotel in Gothenburg, Sweden, home of Volvo
• Fifteen day European Car Insurance coverage including Swedish temporary registration of your new vehicle
• Tour of the Factory Delivery Center in Gothenburg, Sweden and a complimentary Swedish Meatball lunch
• Travel packages and much, much more

If you are interested in taking an Overseas Delivery of a Volvo, call our sales department at 818/577-2500, and get your plans underway for an adventure of a lifetime.

Seven Volvos and Still Counting!

For Linda Lott, DDS, “VOLVO FOR LIFE” is truly a lifetime commitment.

Linda is a Pediatric Dentist and has been driving Volvos since 1971 when she was still a graduate student at UCLA. “I’ve owned seven Volvos since 1971. The first one was a fuel injection 142E two-door coupe with a manual transmission. I didn’t know how to drive a stick, so my friend had to help me to learn so I could drive my car back to UCLA,” said Linda. This first car captured an official “300,000 Mile” certificate from Volvo for driving the car over 300,000 miles. “I just drove that car everywhere!” Linda said with a laugh.

Her next Volvo was a 1985 745 grey station wagon with black leather interior and fuel injection; then she bought a two-door 760. Linda says the most important reason for choosing a Volvo for her is safety and then comfort. “We always chose top of the line, loaded Volvo’s. They are just so comfortable.” In fact, Linda’s dad tried to convince her to buy a Volkswagen when she was a student, and she told him, “Not on these freeways!”

In 1988 Linda bought two Volvos; one was a white 980 station wagon and the other one was a 780 Limited Edition Bertone two-door coupe, which was her favorite. “It was a special design that particular year because it was designed by Nuccio Bertone, an Italian designer who worked for Maserati. I really wanted to keep that car."

The white station wagon got Linda through AYSO soccer with all three of her kids, and when her youngest daughter was ready to get her license she felt very confident riding with her and letting her drive. Linda remembers Halloween 2000 when another car got impatient with traffic and literally jumped across the lanes of traffic on Beverly and La Brea Avenues and t-boned her Volvo. “All we could do was bear down. The air bags discharged, and the whole front end was demolished. My Volvo was totaled, and it had over 200,000 miles on it.”

Linda’s next Volvo was a 2001 XC70, and she quickly fell in love again. “It was espresso brown with tan interior. I loved that car. The interior was like butter,” said Linda. While travelling between her mother’s house in Camarillo and her home in South Pasadena, she quickly put 157,000 miles on that car, so she bought another XC70 - a 2007 with less than 15,000 miles on it. Her son took over the 2001 XC70, and that car currently has 156,000 miles on the odometer and is still going strong. In fact, Linda’s sister borrowed her station wagon so many times that she finally bought herself a V70 2.4T station wagon.

Linda says she really does try to give other car manufacturers a chance. “I tried to make a change, but when I’m in doubt, I always go back to Volvo. Every time I go out of town, I lease a Toyota Prius, and I drive it around, and I am impressed with the mileage. I really wish Volvo could figure that out, but after all the bad PR about Toyota, I won’t be buying one.”

It goes back to her priorities which are safety and comfort. “I’m just comfortable with a Volvo. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into the engineering. For now, I’ll just have to pay extra for the gas.”

For Linda, Volvo has been such a big part of her life, she can’t imagine driving anything else. “I’ll always have at least one Volvo in my family.”

Spring Break 2010 has forever changed Tara O’Malley, 18, from Thousand Oaks, California. A freshman at the University of Arizona, Tara and a few friends were excited to attend a concert in Ventura, and Tara agreed to be the designated driver.

The concert lasted longer than expected, and by the time Tara dropped off each of her friends it was nearly 3 o’clock in the morning. Her last stop was to drop off her boyfriend in Moorpark just a couple exits from her house. Her mom called to check on her and Tara told her that she would be home in 15 minutes.

She remembers getting on the freeway and heading home and because she was so tired, she made sure she was driving exactly 65 miles per hour. “I remember seeing the sign ‘Olsen Road 1 Mile,’ and the next thing I knew, I woke up and my car was flipping over and over. I found out later that I had hit a light pole and the impact must have jolted me awake,” said Tara. According to Tara’s dad, Robert, the car had flipped end over front several times because the Highway Patrol officers found five areas of impact. Tara’s car continued to flip down a 50-foot embankment onto the freeway ramp below and landed upright. By this time, Tara was in total shock. “It was so dark. I had no idea where I was. I couldn’t open the doors because they were stuck shut, and I couldn’t find my cell phone. The sunroof was smashed but there was an opening; so I took off my seatbelt, stood up through the opening and screamed for help. I looked to my right and saw a car driving toward me. It was a police officer. He had heard the car crash so he rushed over to make sure I was okay and then called the paramedics.”

After checking to see if Tara had any neck pain or trouble moving, the paramedics helped her get out of the car through the passenger side door, and she actually walked to the ambulance. While inside the ambulance, someone had found her cell phone that was wedged between the windshield and the dashboard and they asked her if she wanted to call her mom. “I was just so flustered. I was bawling and crying. I couldn’t even use the phone, so I asked them if they could please call her for me, and just as they were looking for her number, my mom called to see where I was. Then my boyfriend called to see if I had gotten home okay.”

Tara was taken to the hospital, and as a precaution, they ran blood work and X-Rays. Amazingly, she had a small gash on her head and her eye area, a large bump, her thumb was swollen and she had a bad bone bruise to her shin. The doctors determined later that she suffered a concussion.

The California Highway Patrol officers who arrived at the scene of the accident after Tara’s ambulance had already left were shocked to see Tara sitting up and talking with her family in the hospital. “They asked me if I remembered hitting the light pole, and I hadn’t even seen the pole. Then they asked me if I had been drinking, which I hadn’t at all,” said Tara. They told my parents, ‘I can’t believe your daughter right now. When we showed up at the accident, we thought the person in that car didn’t survive.’ One of the officers said that his cousin had just been in a similar accident but didn’t make it.”

After a few hours, Tara was released from the hospital. Later that day, Tara’s parents were the ones in shock after seeing the wrecked Volvo. Robert O’Malley summed up their feelings, “We are very grateful that we still have her. We thank God and Volvo!”

Tara only missed one week of school. She just completed her freshman year at the University of Arizona and is looking forward to the summer break. “I’ve been telling everyone I know that I’m going to drive a Volvo for the rest of my life.”

Volvo is SAFE and GREEN

While Volvo doesn't officially have a "Hybrid" vehicle to sell, it offers "Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle" options on four models: The Volvo S40, V50, S60 and V70

PZEV meets today's cleanest emissions standards for gasoline-powered vehicles, and that's not all. Volvos are designed to be 85% recylable. Since 1989, Volvo has marked all plastic components over 50 grams with the Universal Recycling Symbol.

Here are some PZEV Facts:

Vehicles with a PZEZ rating emit about two pounds of hydrocarbons during 100,000 miles of driving. This is equivalent to spilling a pint of gasoline!

Did you know that some HYBRIDS do not even meet the PZEV standard?

A PZEV-rated vehicle would have to be driven more than 2,100 miles to be equal to mowing your lawn for one hour using a 5.4 horsepower lawn mower.

If you grilled one hamburger in your backyard, you would produce the same smog-forming emissions as driving a PZEV car for three hours or 180 miles.

Call 1-800-GO-VOLVO for more information.

Freecreditreport.com is NOT

I always wondered how a company like Freecreditreport.com could afford all those fancy television ads and provide a free service to consumers. If it's "free," who pays for the ads? This falls under the category "If it sounds too good to be true, it is."

The folks at Experian, the company that owns Freecreditreport.com, didn't flat out lie or anything . You do get a copy of your credit report at no charge but only after you enroll in a $14.95 a month credit monitoring service.

Turns out the Federal Trade Commission has been working for years to try to force Freecreditreport.com to more clearly disclose that "free" refers to the one time credit report you receive AFTER you sign up for their credit monitoring service. It was reported that the FTC fined Experian twice for deceptive advertising - once for $950,000 and another one for $300,000. Meanwhile, London based Experian posted earnings for 2009 at $3.9 billion. Even when you consider the costs for the Freecreditreport.com ads are estimated at $58 million dollars a year, these fines amount to nothing more than a light slap on the wrist.

The good news is that there is a way to get a TRULY FREE credit report. It's called AnnualCreditReport.com. By Federal law, consumers are entitled to receive a FREE copy of their credit report once a year from all three credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

You can also protect yourself against identity theft by putting a freeze on your credit. Instead of paying $200 a year for a credit card monitoring service, just sign up online with all three bureaus and freeze your credit. The charge to freeze or "temporarily thaw" your credit by using a personal identification number (PIN) is typically less than $10 per bureau depending on where you live.

Here are a few websites to get you started:
https://www.freeze.equifax.com/
http://www.experian.com/consumer/security_freeze.html
https://annualcreditreport.transunion.com/fa/securityFreeze/landing


Consumers should always be cautious when signing up for anything that claims to be "free." Rarely are there no strings attached. It's important to always read the fine print especially with cleverly designed online ads. You can also check the Better Business Bureau for a list of complaints.

EDUCATION PAYS

Volvo Cars of North America is helping Educators with their new car purchase by offering a $1500 discount off the purchase or lease of eligible Volvo vehicles.

Eligible vehicles include all new XC90, XC70, S80, V70 or C70 models.

Customers must be a member of the National Education Association – the largest membership organization for education professionals in the United States, a NEA employee or state Affiliate employee to qualify. For instance, for California, the state Affiliate is the California Teacher’s Association.

All you need is your school ID (members) or business card (employees) and the NEA discount coupon in order to qualify for the program.

Call 1-800-GO-VOLVO (800/468-6586) for more information.

Like all good things, this promotion will end soon, so call today and take advantage of this great benefit before Sept. 30, 2009.