Hot Rods in Sweden

From 1996 until the telecom meltdown I worked for Ericsson Inc., involuntarily retiring from them in late 2004. During this time I made no less than two dozen trips to Sweden, mostly Stockholm.

On one of the trips in August of 1998 I traveled with my good friend and co-worker Rodney. On this trip we arrived at Arlanda airport mid morning and took a cab to our hotel, The Royal Viking, in down town Stockholm. The cab pulled up between the hotel and Central station. As I got out of the cab fumbling with a laptop and suitcase I glance towards the road and to my surprise I saw this car. Suffering with a lot of jet-lag I rubbed my eyes and took a second look. Yeah, a hot rod in Sweden cruising down a street in Stockholm. Amazing.

This is a 40-41 vintage Chevy coupe. Had a very solid sounding V8 under the hood, it was that sound and sight that grabbed my attention in Stockholm on Saturday morning.

As it drove on and I turned to go to the hotel entrance I saw an advertisement for this hot rod show -

The show was going to run all weekend, what a deal for an old car and hot rod buff like myself. Rodney of course could care less. I would have to motivate him. After some arm and counter arm twisting he agreed to go with me on Sunday if I would help him find a friend of his living in Stockholm. An American married to a Swedish lady. We had an exciting weekend. His friend "found" us and took us on such an adventure. We meet his daughters ages seven and eight or so and a complete family and extended family of Gambians living in Stockholm. This story I shall continue another time, let us move on to the hot rods.

So Sunday we caught a local train and found our way to the show. After about a ten minute walk we found the park where the show was going on. I did not know what to expect, but upon seeing these two Fords I knew I had found a real show.

The quality restoration on these two I have not seen even in some of the best Street Rod Shows in Oklahoma City. Just look at the interior of the convertible.

Not to be out done by the 55-56 Ford guys the show had its vintage 40 coupe and convertible also.

Of course the Chevy guys were not slackers either.

Note the little travel trailer in the background, I saw many of these over there and believe they would be very marketable here once we get to $4.00/gallon gas - HA.

And for us older guys there were these two classics -
A nice 32 roadster -




And this bright red 32 coupe.



And of course Elvis would not let the truckers be out done.


All in all a very interesting trip to Sweden. One of many.

I have since found that Sweden is a hot bed of hot rod shows and car enthusiast, any quick Google search will find many shows and references. In fact there is a company in Sweden where one can buy new sheet metal parts for the old 32 Fords. And in France you can find "new" Ford V8 flathead engines! (The French Army used these engines in their trucks up until just about ten years ago.)

Update: I found a link http://www.ssra.org/ for the Swedish Street Rod Association where a person can find a lot more information than my little blog about hot rods in Sweden.