Salahuddeen Nuruddeen earned the nickname Alpha Volvo in his early twenties. After he completed his secondary education he went to Kaduna from where he started learning how to repair cars in Asikolaye under Alhaji Fatai Rufai in 1986.
He said there is decreasing number of Volvo automobiles on Nigerian roads because of the manufacturers’ lackadaisical attitude, alleging that they changed their marketing appeal from Africa to emerging economies in Asia. He said he cannot remember when he saw an advert of a brand new volvo product in Nigeria or the training and re-training of its specialists, even though the car is not as expensive as it was thought to be. ‘Fairly used Millennium luxury Volvo cost between .8million naira to about 1.2 million,’ he said.

Nuruddeen recalled that when he was an apprentice, volvo’s major dealer was RT Briscoe, but that they replaced it with Asia’s Toyota, which may not be unconnected with the attitude of the manufacturers. The major owners of the brand in Kaduna then were mostly military personnel who went for training abroad, bought and shipped the cars back home. ‘There were many dealers then, but the scarcity of parts may be one of the reasons for the decreasing demand,’ he said, adding that volvo does not have fake spare parts.

He further pointed out that Nigerian elites patronise the volvo car brand because it is strong and durable. A European automobile made in Sweden, it built its engine, body and chassis, but the electrical wiring was supplied by Bosch Engineering Company of Germany. ‘Bosch also produced the electrical wiring of BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen,’ he intimated, adding that it took him eight years to master the technical know-how of volvo before his graduation when he left and established his own workshop in Abuja.

According to him, the old model version of Volvo 244 1982 and 1983 models that was common in Nigeria was very strong and durable and some car owners that used them for almost twenty years. He said the old models hardly had electrical problems. Some came with back-axle-drive, Air Conditioning system and ranged from 244,244GLE, 244DL and 244GLT. ‘But there are some differences between the Swedish and American models. The GL comes with carburettor, GLT has injector fuel supply system, while DL has two versions with either carburettor or injector,’ he explained.

Nuruddeen confessed that the new model volvo has electrical components that are a bit hard to understand due to advance electrical wirings for electrical tapping controls like the window, mirror, fuel supply, seat-adjuster, car-heater among others. He admitted that it took him some considerable amount of time to understand its technology which has computer diagnosing port with brain box.

But beyond car repairs, Nuruddeen and a former colleague, Bulama, trained three youths. Even though he does repair Japanese cars, Nuruddeen is mostly known for Volvo. He started repairing non-volvo products when customers compelled him to while he was an apprentice.

When a panel beater converted a Volvo to a pick-up in Kaduna, Nuruddeen and others followed suit. He pointed out that ‘volvo is stronger than Peugeot’s pick-up, because its chassis is unique. Volvo is one of the few cars that one can overhaul the engine and it still works as new,’ adding that the old model has four cylinder straight engine, while some of the new models have either five cylinder, which is only unique to European and American cars and not to Asian cars.

He also intimated that the new off-road or Sports Utility Van (SUV) of volvo XC90 is appealing but Asian car Manufacturers are more aggressive in their marketing as they partner with the government and corporate organizations to give hire-purchase for staff to own the car and pay in instalments. ‘And this has yielded positive results as many people go for the cars as there is availability of spare parts,’ he said.
 On the claim that Volvo consumes fuel more than other conventional cars, he said it is heavy compared to Japanese Honda 79 model, which was very small and testifies that the more the weight of a car, the more the fuel consumed to gather enough energy to power it.