ONE OF the most attractive of all classics celebrates its 50th birthday this month.
Planned in Sweden, designed in Italy and originally built in Britain, the Volvo P1800 is perhaps Volvo’s most internationally renowned model.
Star of one of the most exciting television series of the 1960s the P1800 has always stayed in the fast lane of arousing emotions.
It started life in 1961 after four years of careful planning and development, remaining in production for the next twelve years.
From the sales perspective it played perhaps a marginal role for the company, but from the image viewpoint it played a far bigger role than any previous Volvo model.
The P1800 was originally envisaged as essentially a piece of eye candy to pull passers-by into Volvo’s dealers.
Volvo had tried its hand at a sports car in the early 1950s with the open two-seater plastic-bodied Volvo Sport which just did not hit the spot so did not place vast hopes on the financial success of the new car.
But the P1800 was a different animal. Design proposals were ordered from Italy for the new baby which had a fixed roof, a steel body, a lot of the mechanical components lifted straight from the Amazon plus the newly-developed B18 engine.
Because Volvo was massively involved in development at the time the hunt for a suitable partner got under way.
There was a move for Karmann to take on the building of the P1800 but Volkswagen, long associated with the German coachbuilder, waved the big stick and put a stop to it because I believe they saw the P1800 as a threat to the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.
This setback nearly put paid to the P1800, but after much deliberation a decision was taken to use two British companies to build it.Pressed Steel would build the bodies and Jensen Motors would paint and assemble the cars.
But constant problems with personnel, working methods, quality, suppliers and logistics along with an unwillingness to deal with these issues meant that as soon as it was possible, Volvo transferred production home to Sweden.
As of spring 1963 – after 6000 Jensen-built cars – production of the 1800 started up in Volvo’s Lundby factory but it was not until 1969 that body pressings were transferred from Pressed Steel in Scotland to Volvo’s press shop in Olofström.
In 1963 the car was known simply as the 1800 S - S standing for Sweden.
In 1971, however, a new body variant was presented, the 1800 ES.
A sporting hatchback with an extended roof line and an estate car rear featuring a large glass tailgate. This version on the continent became known, somewhat unkindly as Snow White's hearse but it was a very attractive car.
One of the most famous drivers was Roger Moore, who was fortunate enough to drive a P1800 in his role as debonair crime-fighter Simon Templar, a sort of modern-day Robin Hood, in the British TV drama series based on Leslie Charteris’s “The Saint”.
The TV production company was looking for an attractive sports car that would suit a gentleman of independent means and after being turned down by Jaguar approached Volvo to ask for the P1800. Volvo was quick to oblige. It was a brilliant PR move for the new Volvo model.
To this day the P1800 is still often referred to as The Saint’s car.
Another person who can testify to the car’s excellence is New Yorker Irv Gordon, who has covered more than 4,500,000 kilometres in the 1800 S he purchased in 1966, making him the holder of a Guinness world record that will probably never be able to be beaten.
It was Volvo's only true sports car and it had that special something that makes a mass-produced car a classic. It looked like an Italian supercar and had Volvo reliability.
Indeed my first experience of track driving was at Cheshire's Oulton Park in an early version of the P1800.
It was a true inspiration and like many others at the time I was firmly hooked on a car that did not follow any accepted convention, but did things its own way. A bit like The Saint himself really.