Volvo P1800 turns 50

Volvo's sporty little number - the P1800

For those of us old enough to think in black and white, the Volvo P1800 conjures up long-forgotten images of The Saint and Roger Moore. For those too young to remember, the Saint was Roger Moore’s television audition for James Bond, but the real star of the show was the Volvo P1800.

Even in the early 1960s, Volvo was renowned for its solid, safe and respectable cars. Cars like the Volvo Amazon which transported Swedes – and many others – in tank-like safety from the 50s to the 70s.

So the P1800 was something of a surprise, especially as Volvo’s previous attempt at something sporty – the P1900 – had managed to sell fewer cars than a Lada dealership in Cheshire.

But the P1800 wasn’t designed to be a big seller, it was designed to be eye-candy; the headline act; a way to get footfall in Volvo’s rather staid showrooms.

The project was championed by Helmer Petterson – a Volvo consultant responsible for the 1940s Volvo PV444 – who got his son Pelle Petterson, who worked for Italian designers Pietro Frua, to design the P1800. Which makes the Volvo P1800 as Swedish as a car can be, although Volvo has insisted for ever that the P1800 is an Italian designed car.

Yet that Swedish-ness is something Volvo can deservedly shout about. The P1800 has stood the test of time remarkably well, and there exists a P1800 with three million miles on the clock. Can you imagine any Italian car from the early sixties surviving for that long? Can you actually imagine any Italian car from now going for that long?

The P1800 survived in to the ’70s and progressed through the 1800S, the 1800E and finally the 1800ES (no one said Volvo was imaginative with their nomenclature).

You can still see echoes of the P1800 in some of Volvo’s modern cars, perhaps best in the C30. But the P1800 doesn’t need to be remembered as the inspiration for something modern, it’s good enough to stand on its own as a great example of almost timeless car design.

And if proof of that timeless design were needed, we need look no further than the Vox Volvo P1800, a stunning car built by Mattias Vöcks from Koenigsegg which hardly changes the P1800 design, yet conspires to be as contemporary, appealing and exciting as any modern car.

Happy Birthday Volvo P1800.

By Cars UK