Swedish Car Day XVIII

Photo credit: eEuroparts

Swedish Car Day XVIII was held at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts on Sunday, August 27, 2017. As it has been since its inception in 2000, the event was sponsored by Ray Ciccolo’s Village Automotive Group, with Volvo Village of Danvers, Volvo Village of Boston and Charles River Saab the official hosts.

Swedish Car Day XVIII was packed with superlatives, and there was unanimity in the praise for the many successes achieved that day. 302 Saabs and Volvos were registered for the event, the most ever, which brought the gracious lawn at the Larz Anderson to its capacity, and with walk-on guests the total attendance was over 1000.

Another first was the reveal of the all-new Volvo XC60, the all-new replacement for Volvo’s best selling vehicle. A presentation on the car was made by Alex Trippi, Brand Manager at Volvo Cars USA, who is originally from Andover, Massachusetts. Three examples were on hand for the crowd, along with two cars from Volvo’s heritage collection: a 1967 Amazon Wagon (replete with a wooden surf board on the roof) and a stunning yellow 1995 850T-R.

Participants and their cars were diverse, hailing from all the New England states, plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ontario, Canada! This year clubs were invited to participate and park as clubs, and four participated: Swedish Chariots, Volvo Club of America Mass Bay Chapter, Volvo Club of America southern New England and New England Saabs. In total, the clubs accounted for 96 cars! The oldest Volvo in the mix was a 1957 444 belonging to David Moore of Maine. The oldest Saab in attendance belonged to Asher Schlusselberg of New York. Best in Show awards went to David Hatton of Natick and his 1995 855 T5R, and to Casey Sturrup of Waltham and his 2003 Saab 9-5 Aero.

A crowd pleaser at every Swedish Car Day is the raffle, where participants win wonderful prizes donated by manufacturers and vendors. This year, there was a special raffle to raise money to support the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Pan Mass Challenge effort of long time Swedish Car Day participant, Saab and Volvo owner and cancer survivor Jim Coggeshall, who this year rode in his seventh PMC. This year we raised $2400 which should push Jim’s total donation to PMC over $80,000.

Swedish Car Day was visited by several dignitaries, including Volvo Cars of North America Vice President Scott Doering. Also in attendance was VCOA President and CEO Lex Kerssemakers making his final public appearance before departing to become the head of Volvo Cars of Europe and Africa.

As Swedish Car Day has grown in attendance and significance from a local to national, even international, car show destination, the pressure is on to raise the bar again in 2018. Meetings have already been held to that end, and we aim to delight Swedish Car fans yet again!