Vashon couple’s quirky Swedish fire truck turns heads

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 29, 2025

When the Strawberry Festival Car Show & Parade rolled through Vashon on July 20, it was led by an unmistakably tall, red engine.

Behind the wheel of that truck, a 1977 Volvo C303, were Kevin Flick and Malory Graham. They liken their unique truck to a “giant toy,” and gave it the nickname “Boots.”

The story behind the truck is one of connection, curiosity and political expression.

During the early days of the pandemic, Flick got an offer to move to Sweden for his corporate job at Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. Initially the couple balked at the idea, but seeking adventure in the depths of social distancing, they decided to make the move.

Once in Sweden, the couple leaned into the culture of their new home, taking cold plunges in the winter, drinking Swedish gin and tracking down the most uniquely-Swedish vehicle they could find.

They found it in a Volvo fire truck they bought at an auction on an online resale site for $15,000. When picking up the truck in an area of remote farmland, Flick was initially bewildered by the vehicle’s many gadgets and oddities.

The seller at first “handed me the keys, and he kind of pointed me the way to get off of his farm,” Flick said, but did end up walking Flick through operating the vehicle.

The couple — two American transplants driving an antique fire truck — became something of a spectacle in the neighborhood.

“We found out that some of our neighbors were talking to each other and hypothesizing that this might have been a practical joke from my colleagues at Volvo, saying, ‘Welcome to Volvo. Here’s your company car!’”

The truck was their sole vehicle, as well as Flick’s side project. He spent hundreds of hours in a shared workshop, gutting the firefighting gear and rebuilding the interior into a camper.

The fire truck was originally used by Swedish military and fire services, and its towering stance stems in part from its portal axles. Unlike most vehicles, in which the axle sits in line with the center of the wheels, the truck’s axles are higher up — granting it extremely high ground clearance that lets it zoom through bumpy, narrow forest roads and other terrain.

When the couple moved back to the U.S. a few months ago, they shipped the fire truck to the East Coast and drove it cross-country to their new home on Vashon.

The pair says the truck’s novelty is an invitation for friendliness. In Montana, one man flagged the couple down in the middle of the street and offered to buy the pair coffee for the chance to talk about the truck. When the truck broke down at a rest stop, a mechanic volunteered three hours of his time to help them fix it, just for the chance to get under the hood.

“It’s been so endearing … that it brings out that enthusiasm to connect with people,” said Flick.

The pair has also made the fire truck into a political statement. While preparing to move back to the U.S., in response to President Donald Trump’s first months in office, they added lettering to the side reading “We Stand Against Tyranny.”

Having recently read “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder, they were inspired to use the truck to make a political stand, especially as Americans living abroad.

“Europeans were super eager to hear about what’s going on [in the U.S.],” Flick said. “So we thought, let’s put it out there that these are good conversations to have, and if you see that and it encourages you to do so, then we should talk about it.”

But the phrase carries different meanings across the political spectrum. In the Midwest, a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat responded positively to the line; Flick remembered him saying, “‘Right on, brother, we do. We do stand against tyranny.’”

Despite their differences, Graham took away a sense of hope from the interaction.

“Actually, that’s kind of great, that we can be actually having conversations on both sides of the political spectrum with that line,” she said.

Now settled on Vashon, Flick and Graham see the truck as a bridge into the community.

“We really want that truck to be in service of joy, wherever it is,” Graham said. “And I feel like Vashon is gonna be a good place for that.”

Mari Kanagy is a contributing journalist to The Beachcomber.