Sunday, September 20, 2009

The KJB Man

A Cool Ride




I saw a unusual looking car on the road a while back. A few hours later I noticed it parked at the Jordbro shopping centre, so I stopped for a chat with the owner. This is Sten-Åke Svensson. The car is an KJB. That stands for Kjell Bergstrand. He was the man who designed and built the car. The sheet metal is 1,3 mm thick, and Kjell did the stamping of the metal himself. The steering comes from a Volvo 240. The engine from a SAAB V-4. Some of the instruments came from a Russian Lada. All the wood and the seats were taken from a boat, and I do believe the designer was a professional boat builder. When he died a few years ago his wife decided to sell the car. A few interested buyers were turned down for different reasons, but Sten Åke who called the woman on the phone, was accepted, and he took a train ride all the way up to Luleå where the deal was made. He paid 40 000 SEK and is now the owner of the worlds only KJB. Once a year the widow travels to Stockholm to meet her family and she then usually meets up with Sten Åke. During our chat some of the local kids gathered around to check out the car and ask there own questions. To see the rest of the photos of the KJB just press the white arrow below.

9 comments:

eamon@ewmphotography said...

Love the flickr stream in the post Steffe. How do you do that? Might be time for me to upgrade my flikr account to pro so that I can have galleries... Great photos.

Don and Krise said...

Very cool Steffe. In a way the car is slightly reminiscent of the old MG's.

Hilda said...

It's a very handsome car and obviously made with a lot of love.

Gunn said...

What a unique car!
I like the way you have taken the other photos too, the focal points and sharpness. They are very crisp and interesting.

Anonymous said...

It looks like one of those cars on the auto auction. Nice photography.

I spent one day restoring Patty's computer. She clicked on an email she had sent that could not be delivered and was returned. She was curious as to why it wasn't delivered and clicked on the notice. Well, it was a "worm" that locked her computer and wouldn't let her do anything. When I got up the next day, she came out in her PJs and said, "My computer won't come on."

I had to reformat the hard drive and return it to the factory, new, condition. She lost everything on the computer. I feel sorry for her as it takes a lot of time to put her things back on the computer that she had saved on an external hard drive. Beware folks. If you send an email and it comes back, you should not open it.

I have not been able to get around much of late.

brattcat said...

love the car, love the guy in the car, love the self-portraits. my first impression when i saw the shot was, 'honey, i shrunk the car' but after reading about the builder and his widow i'm full of respect for kgb and for you.

Luis Gomez said...

Steffe once again great job. Beautiful!

Zyzzyz said...

Looks similar to an old MG to me too.

Leeds in Yorkshire daily photo - Paul said...

Steffe, I thought it was an early MG, nice story. Very rare car.