Planned in Sweden, designed in Italy, unveiled at the car show in Brussels, built in Britain and a huge success in the USA. The Volvo P1800 is perhaps Volvo’s most internationally renowned model ever and the one that arouses most emotions. In 2011 this remarkable people’s favourite turns 50. It was in 1961 that it entered production and reached showrooms 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 – and few if any subsequent models have matched it image-wise.
Design coup
The Volvo P1800 was born for that very reason – to attract the attention of passersby to Volvo’s display windows and to increase what today is known as ‘floor traffic’ so that people who entered the showroom left it in a new Volvo.
Volvo had tried its hand at a sports car back in the early 1950s – the open two-seater plastic-bodied Volvo Sport which was built from 1955 to 1957 with a total production run of just 67 cars. “Not a bad car, but a bad Volvo” was the way Volvo President Gunnar Engellau put it when he retired the model. However, he did recognise the importance of having a prestigious and exciting model to boost overall sales, and Volvo dealers were desperate for just such a car.
Design proposals were ordered from Italy, where Volvo consultant Helmer Petterson – who was deeply involved in the planning of the new car – had got his son Pelle a job at Pietro Frua thanks to Pelle’s fresh degree in industrial design from the Pratt Institute in New York. When the time came to unveil the four proposals to Volvo’s board in 1957, Helmer sneaked in his son Pelle’s fifth design – and that was the one that everyone picked. Engellau in particular liked it since he had very definite views about wanting an Italian-designed car. That of course is precisely what he did get, but it was penned by a 25 year old native of Göteborg who would later make his mark as a boat designer and win Olympic medals in yacht racing. Eventually, however, the truth behind the winning design proposal emerged. The choleric Engellau blew his top, felt he had been hoodwinked and promised that Pelle would never be acknowledged as the car’s designer. And indeed many years went by before the truth was made known and Pelle Petterson received the credit he was due for penning one of the world’s most attractive sports coupes.