Tucson has a reputation as a Volvo town - an old Volvo town.
The vintage Volkswagen Beetles and hippie vans from the 1950s, '60s and '70s that growled and puffed down the city's streets for decades have mostly disappeared. But you seldom can go two minutes at a major Tucson intersection, especially around the University of Arizona, without seeing a "Swedish Brick" - as the boxy older rear-wheel-drive Volvo 240 series cars from the mid-1970s through early 1990s are known to fans.
Andy Aragon, a longtime Tucson Volvo parts-yard and repair-shop proprietor, has moved the repair part of his Revolvstore closer to the center of Tucson's Volvo market - 802 N. Fourth Ave., a few blocks west of the UA.
The parts side of the Revolvstore, one of the nation's largest Volvo-only junkyards, is still operating on a 1 1/2-acre lot at 5275 E. Drexel Road. It's near the end of a rotten, truck-filled two-lane road that snakes through Tucson's auto burial grounds in a strip of desert between Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Interstate 10.
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"We've had people that came in from Sweden and took pictures out there for hours," Aragon said.
But it wasn't such a joy for urban Tucsonans seeking repair work, Aragon said. So he studied his customers' home addresses and waited for a chance to lease the former gas station and general auto repair shop on the northeast corner of North Fourth Avenue and East University Boulevard.
Revolvstore Service Center has been open at the new location only since the beginning of this month, but Aragon said he's booked up. It's no surprise - he said he can look out at the busy intersection at almost any time of the day and see a Volvo, new or old, either in traffic or parked along the avenue.
Although there are no official figures on which U.S. city has the most old Volvos per capita, Tucson seems to be right up there with Volvo nests on the West and East coasts.
Aragon attributes it partially to the lack of rust-inducing wet weather and road salt in Tucson. But he also thinks the Volvo count could be getting some help from Tucson's college town and hippie streak, too.
Despite the soggy weather and hell-on-metal winter road salt, the Boston area, especially Cambridge, is a nest of Volvos. There seems to be a correlation between the college professor count and the Volvo population.
"Volvo has a cult following" here, said competing Tucson aftermarket Volvo mechanic Roy Key.
Key's operation, The Swedish Connection, is as different from a typical auto repair business as a boxy 1980s Volvo 240 is from a Nissan 300ZX. Key prefers to work only on rear-wheel-drive Volvos - mostly the 240, 740 and 940 series made up until the mid-'90s.
Key doesn't have a Web site.
He doesn't even have a shop that's open to the public.
Customers call Key - he is now using a cell phone - and he comes to them. If he can fix the car there, he sometimes does. If not, Key leaves his old Volvo station wagon or work truck there and drives the Volvo in question to his garage, and returns it repaired or serviced.
It has worked for him for more than 10 years. He said he's not too worried about running out of old Volvos to work on in Tucson.
"There are pockets in California with a tremendous number of Volvos," and in Seattle, too, Key said.
But Tucson, Key and Aragon said, is full of them and their loyal - and often frugal - owners.
Neither seems worried about Ford's pending sale of its Volvo automobile division to a Chinese company.
"The Chinese have the money to do something with the product," Aragon said. "They're going to have a market for the cars in China, and they're going to keep making cars (for the Western markets) in Sweden and Belgium."
Key mostly works on the older, pre-Ford models, but Aragon said he continually pays to get access to official Volvo software and training for his staff. As long as he does that, he believes there will be business for him.
"The new Volvos have a five-year bumper-to-bumper warranty, so they go to the dealer," Aragon said of owners of the latest models. "But once they come out of warranty, they come to us."
For Key, the continued availability of older-series Volvos doesn't seem threatened, either. He has a number of customers driving Volvos with 300,000 or more miles on the odometer.
And the Swedish Brick's safety continues to appeal to new generations, as do the cars' funky style.
Key said his teenage son was surprised to find out about the connection between Volvo owners when he bought his own. "My son bought a Volvo 240. He said, 'People in Volvos wave at me.' "
No surprise to Key or Aragon.
"There are very few cases that I've ever seen a fatality in a Volvo," said Aragon, whose junkyard is made up mostly of wrecks.
They both said Volvos are frequently passed down in families, sometimes through three generations. Many customers who are parents put their young, beginning drivers in one of the boxy-but-safe cars, they said. Then, after creating another generation of Volvo owner, the parents get themselves another Volvo.
Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at dsorenson@azstarnet.com or 573-4185.