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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

Four Speeds & Drum Brakes

By Tom Tate
NOR'EASTER Online - June 2005
Northeast Region Logo

A recent photo in the local newspaper showed President Bush driving a restored 1956 Russian Volga sedan with the owner, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in the passenger seat. It was a great shot as these two world leaders were waving and smiling for the assembled press of both nations. The four door sedan never looked so good in its glistening white paint and shiny chrome trim. There was no front valence panel under the bumper so the coil springs, shocks, sway bar links sparkled in clear view. The Volga was manufactured from '56 through '70 as a 75 hp four cylinder sedan, wagon, or pickup. It had a top speed of 78 mph with its 2.5 liter engine pushing a little over 3000 pounds. Of all the cars that have been manufactured in Russia in the last fifty years I can't believe that the most desirable of all is a four door sedan that looks like a small '51 Plymouth Cranbrook, a car that even NADA doesn't list as a collectable. And they list everything.
  
You have to wonder how President Putin came to own the car. Could it have been a car that was passed down to him by a parent or grandparent? That would certainly explain why such an extensive, and expensive restoration was done.
   
When people with an old Porsche consider a full restoration they should always consider the end result. Does it really make sense to spent $30 to $50k on a car that will only be worth $20k when you're done? Restoration costs are roughly the same on a '60 B coupe as they are on a '65 SC Cabriolet, but one will be worth low 20's and the other high 40's when you're done. Hard to justify unless you were born in the back seat or came home from the hospital in it.
   
Maybe Putin spent his formative years looking out the back window on family trips. Like the US, they didn't have Interstate highways in the 50's but I guess they could of had some pretty long family trips considering the vast size of Russia. With the level of luxury in modern cars it's hard to imagine crossing the US in a Plymouth Cranbrook using only two lane roads.
   
As kids we used to drive to the Midwest from California every Christmas, it all seemed like such an adventure back then. My parents always drove straight through but tried to make the journey interesting by pointing out different landmarks that we passed. That was back in the days of comic books and our father seemed to spend most of the trip telling us to put the "funnies" down and look out the windows. The argument was that kids around the country would give anything to be able to take the trips that we took. That claim fell on the same ears that heard about the starving children around the world when we didn't clean our plates at dinner. I wonder if Russian kids heard the same stories about the starving children. If they did, I wonder where they were told the children lived, in the US. Somehow the sights we saw and games we played (remember doing the ABC's from license plates or road signs?) all seem pretty mundane by today’s standards. What teen would consider going on the ride to school without their Ipod, Gameboy, or DVD player? Cross country without cable?

Not a chance. Singing songs in a moving car nowadays would cause people to shake their heads and look for the Mass plate and a Department of Mental Health sticker on the door.
   
We had an old joke that we always did at stop lights years ago that never failed to get a laugh. With no air conditioning in the 50's everyone always drove around with their windows down so when stopped at traffic lights it was easy to hear conversations in the next car. My father in his booming voice would say "Farmer Brown does your cow give milk?" To which we would reply as loud as we could "Nope, I gotta take it away from her?" followed by gales of laughter. It wasn't really all that funny but it always got a laugh from the stranger in the next car. Modern cars are sealed up tight and the occupants are so caught up in their own little world (unless they're on the phone) that it's unlikely they would ever hear anything from the outside unless it's the vibration from the 12" base speakers in that low rider two cars ahead. My how things have changed.
   
Maybe going for a ride with a friend in an old car isn't such a bad idea after all. You remember something called a ride don't you? That's when you just got in the car and drove around with no destination in mind. Maybe that's what Bush and Putin were doing; let's hope that they had a good time. The world could use a nice ride in an old car now and then. KTF
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