Volvo P1800 turns 50

Although Volvo is only now managing to turn around the staid image that engulfed it 40 years ago, the company wasn’t always guilty of designing and building cars as safe and exciting as a bank vault.

Take the 1961 Volvo P1800 for example.

Introduced in an era when Volvo was about to flood the market with safe, stolid family sedans, the two-door sports coupe was a stark contrast with its low-slung, long-bonnet looks, torquey performance from its 1.8-litre 76kW B18 four-cylinder engine and – for the time – sharp and responsive road manners.

The P1800 went on to become something of an icon for the brand and is undoubtedly best known for being English actor Roger Moore’s car of choice for his role as Simon Templar in “The Saint” TV series.

Like its sedan brethren, the P1800 was also well known for its longevity - testament to which can be found in the high-kilometre examples still around today. One owner has even rated a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records with an accumulated 4.5 million kilometres showing on the odometer, still using the original engine.

In production for 12 years with very little change to the original design apart from an 1800 ES hatchback variant introduced in 1971, the Volvo coupe was initially built in Britain but eventually became fully Swedish-made in 1969 after the body pressing was transferred from Pressed Steel in Scotland to Volvo’s own plant in Olofstrom. The actual production of the car had transferred to Volvo’s Lundby factory in Sweden from Jensen Motors in the UK in 1963.

An interesting fact about the P1800 that was not revealed for many years is that while the styling originated from Pietro Frua in Italy, the design was actually the work of Swedish industrial design graduate Pelle Petterson - and the son of Volvo consultant Helmer Petterson - who began his career with Pietro Frua.

The final design was a late-entry proposal from the then 25 years old Petterson, following four other proposals presented by Pietro Frua to Volvo’s board in 1957.

Three prototypes were then built by Frua in Turin in 1957 and 1958, all based on the curvy, current Volvo P1200 Amazon sedan and put to work in numerous capacities, including as templates for production tools, for press previews and photography. Amazingly, all three, according to Volvo, are still on the road.

The P1800 started with disc-drum brakes but went on to adopt an all-disc system, while transmission choices included two four-speed manuals (one with overdrive) and a three-speed auto.

6000 Volvo P1800s were built by Jensen in the UK (Volvo did not have the capacity to produce a separate line of cars when the P1800 was first mooted) before production was transferred to Sweden, where the name was changed to Volvo 1800S – the “S” standing for Sweden.

In all, Volvo built more than 47,000 P1800/1800S/1800ES models between 1961 and 1973 and the car has acquired a cult status since then. It has always been listed as a cool car.

Volvo’s announcement of the P1800’s 50th anniversary was the opportunity to remind us of another sports car produced by the company: The fibreglass-bodied Sport P1900 two-seat convertible that was sold between 1955 and 1957 with a total production of just 67. According to Volvo’s then president Gunnar Engellau at the time the plug was pulled on the P1900, it was “not a bad car, but a bad Volvo.”

The P1800, on the other hand, was a good car and its value to the company as a “halo” model was indisputable.

Classic footage of P1800 in the TV show "The Saint" from Carlin Global

Old school Volvo P1800 TV Commercials complete with Swedish speak and swinging 60's soundtrack

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