Last week Håns and I decided to run up the (miraculously still functioning) odometer and head to Maine for the Volvo Club of America’s National Meet. Mostly this was just an excuse to tuck in one last non-salty drive of the year and to show off my car waxing skills.
Truth be told, my car waxing skills are pretty weak given my lack of interest in polishing much of anything. Still, I can admire other automotive enthusiasts who either have the ability to keep their cars clean and/or have the resources to pay someone else to do that. All of which is to say that for the most part, bringing my car to a show is really just an excuse for a drive, and sometimes to find something really cool.
This time, the “find something really cool” aspect paid off quite well. It’s not often that I encounter in the metal (or fiberglass in this case) a car that is one out of a total of 67 (or maybe 68) produced. But that’s the case with the 1957 Volvo P1900 I found in Maine.
First, let me explain the title of this post. And to do that, we need to gaze upon one of the most lovely – in my opinion – European car designs of the late 1950s-1960s. Distinctive, but in a good way. Which cannot be said for some other French cars at the time.
It might be good to cover the eyes of household pets and send small children from the room before clicking on that link.
The Facel Vega was produced in three series, Series II is pictured above, and it is the most contemporary with the Volvo P1900. As an interesting aside, Facel’s third and final effort before drowning forever was the Facel III, which adopted the same Volvo-produced drive train as final P1900s. The Facel II design – which lasted six or seven years longer than the P1900 — was more solidly 1960s than the P1900, but to my eye there’s still a resemblance. More to the point, both the Facel Vega and the Volvo P1900 by the end of the 1950s were on a highway to nowhere. Not facile at all.
In my discussion about this car at the Volvo event with its restorer, I eventually mentioned that this car reminded me more of a late 1950s Facel Vega than anything else ever produced by Volvo. I’m not so sure that he resonated with my association. He nodded and gave me the professorial “Hummmmm” response which indicated that I was not so bright or that perhaps he was not familiar with Facel Vegas.
I vote for the former.
Overall, I think what led me down the Facel Vega garden path was the accented center grill. Of course, it does seem that Volvo at the time associated accented pinched in center grills as something of a mark of sophistication.
A somewhat similar effect was tried 10 years later with the 164, apparently to much greater success. The 160 series Volvos weren’t failures due to their looks – which many considered somewhat sophisticated in a British sort of way. No, it was the engine that killed the 160 series, but that’s a story for another day. Notably, at this year’s national Volvo Club meet there were just as many P1900s as there were 160s. One of each.
At any rate, one is free to make whatever associations they wish with the Volvo P1900 since this is a tremendously rare car. Here on CC, there’s only been one decade-old post by Paul about this vehicle, and one with an actual writer-photograph of P1900 in a museum in Sweden. So, I’ll add a bit to that body of knowledge.
As backstory to those who choose to follow such things, the Volvo P1900 was developed in the mid-1950s (1954-1955 to be specific) in conjunction with Volvo’s official entry into the U.S. market. Feeling full of beans lingonberries, Volvo wanted a sports car to support and bolster its image in this land of carefree, top-down, motoring.
I can sort of understand that, since the car that Volvo chose to enter the US market with — the PV444 — was kind of dowdy. Even when replaced with the slightly revised PV544 (pictured above) a few years later, the model looked a number of years behind the times. Now, I feel that the PV series happens to be a beautiful car that has a tremendous number of merits. But admittedly “sportiness” is not one of those.
There may be more to say about the PV series in subsequent posts about our Maine adventure.
The so-called “Duett” – or technically the PV445 — was a 2-door wagon version of the PV444 sedan. This is an original color, and many Duetts were finished in a two-tone style like this.
The stately PV544 and its “Duett” derivative were siblings to the P1900. If things had worked out in the mid-to-late-1950s, Volvo would have brought a sedan, a wagon/utility vehicle, and a sports car to the U.S. As we’ll see, things didn’t quite work out.
The P1900 shared the basic running gear with the PV444 and Duett. It even had the same hinged-at-the-front hood.
As seen here on a Duett.
Most importantly, it also carried the Volvo 1.4 litre B14 engine that accompanied the early PV444 sedans.
But wait, you say…
Why, that looks like a B16 to me!
If your engine identification skills are better than mine (which admittedly are on par with my car waxing ability), you’d be correct. That’s because this car acquired an upgraded engine at some point over the period of time between 1957 and now. Early P1900s had the 1.4 litre (B14A, dual carburetor) engine. Some later ones were produced with the 1.6 litre B16B engine. Being five (or six) cars away from the end of the line for P1900s, whether this car came from the factory with this engine or perhaps it was upgraded by a previous owner was said to be unknown.
This car is one of four that the restorer – Alan Prosser – is aware of. Alan has been in the Volvo servicing and restoration business since this car was just a “kind of old car” versus a unicorn collectors’ item, and he seems to have a pretty good handle on the provenance of these things. There are conflicting reports online about just how many of these cars originally came to the U.S. and then how many still exist here. Alan is in the camp that says that there are very few left on this side of the Atlantic. He told me that he personally knows of four — this one, a white one, a blue one, and then a kind of broken down green one that was good only for parts. Of course, when there are only 67 (or 68) ever produced, “good for parts” is still plenty good.
This red car – which used to be white before Alan got it in the mid-1980s – is number 62 out of 67. Or maybe 68. “67 or 68” seems to be one of the contested facts in P1900-land.
As is often the case when I’m presented with information that doesn’t exactly add up, I try to clarify. Usually, this results in my falling down one rabbit hole or another online. True to form, clarification of the overall Volvo P1900 story has resulted in the same. Thus, I’ll leave you with the following items which from what I can tell seem to be facts. That’s at least until someone else comes along with challenging facts, something that quite likely could happen.
- There are not very many P1900s here in the U.S. Several sources (including the owner of this one) say that there are only 4. It’s unclear if that’s 4 period or maybe only 4 that run.
- Most of the P1900s that exist in the U.S. live in California.
- In addition to #62, the subject of this post, there’s definitely a white one and a blue one.
- Between 67 and 68 were produced. Volvo still says 67 on its corporate site. A number of P1900 owners say 68. (That’s like what? Maybe three – or perhaps two – people? Hummmmmmm.)
Here’s the guy who owns the white one and he’s sort of pals with a guy named Lars (of course) who owns the blue one. He references Alan’s red one (which used to be a white one) at about 4:30 in this video. Additional driving videos of the white one (with some good commentary about the oddities of the car) can be found here.
The P1900 has a number of small details that serve to delight and amaze. For example, there’s this bit of trim that appears to have some function related to the windshield trim/gasket.
And these trunk hinges. Or were they calling this the boot? Or is there a more colorful and unpronounceable Swedish term? Trunk, boot, whatever, you need to open it to access the fuel filler, which is on the bottom of the trunk/boot floor. Not terribly convenient (or shall we say”facile”?), but that seems to be part of P1900 territory.
Finally, the P1900 has these very nice stylized images of a sailboat, in honor of Glasspar, on each side set into the tiny rear windows.
The interior in this well-restored example looks like a nice place to drive. But here again, the P1900 proves not to be very facile. I watched a very average-sized fellow struggle to get himself behind the wheel what with the non-adjustable everything (seats, wheel, etc.). It was an ordeal and the tops of my thighs hurt watching him crush his under that beautiful plastic steering wheel with the banjo accents. My thought – and I believe he echoed this once seated behind the wheel – was that it certainly wouldn’t be “fun” to have to be extracted from this vehicle in the event of a crash.
Well, there aren’t any seat belts either, so in the event of a crash, rescuers in 1957 might not be in a particular hurry to extract the former driver.
Ah, but if the last thing one observed were the beautiful array of gauges, with their Swedish labels as you slipped this mortal coil?
Could be worse.
As noted earlier, the P1900 was (is) a fiberglass-bodied car. It has the drive train of the PV series, but has its own tubular frame upon which the fiberglass body is hung. Early P1900s had bodies built by Glasspar in California, but after copy 20 body production transferred to Volvo in Sweden. The above picture of our #62 example shows that Volvo may not have exactly figured out how to produce plastic cars in 1957. The resulting parts look a bit hand-made.
The drips on the upper (aft) edge of the hood are not paint but just rain water. In fact, this P1900 was beautifully restored, but there’s no hiding the rough surfaces inherent in this relatively early use of fiberglass molding. All of which adds up to the legendary story — entirely glossed over on Volvo’s corporate recollection of the model — of how the model was killed.
The P1900 had the misfortune of being a car that was greenlit by one Volvo CEO (Assar Gabrielsson, after visiting Bill Tritt, the founder of Glasspar and the man who helped influence Chevrolet to produce the fiberglass-bodied Corvette) in the early 1950s and then subject to review by the next Volvo CEO (Gunnar Engellau) later in the 1950s. Upon assuming the helm of Volvo, Engellau supposedly took one drive in Gabrielsson’s baby and declared it unsafe and not able to meet Volvo’s quality standards. In short order he killed the model. All things considered, since Volvo’s soon-to-arrive reputation would be built upon rock-solid safety engineering, Engellau probably made a good decision.
Since this car is something of a fixture on the Maine Old Volvo Scene, there were several individuals at this event who have had the opportunity to drive Chassis #62. These folks shared with me a Gunnar-congruent opinion that the P1900 is no real joy to drive. They indicated that the car is under-powered and steers vaguely and heavily, somewhat like the fiberglass boats that are its distant kin. Once again, this is in keeping with the ultimate outcome of there being only 67 produced by a company that clearly had the wherewithal to produce other vehicles in historic numbers.
Apparently, all things considered, the P1900 was not very facile at all. Whereupon I hope to have brought this whole woebegone pun full circle and to whatever landing it could possibly have.
Fortunately for Volvo, the forthcoming P1800 was built out of metal and had seat belts, albeit with initially the same engine as the final P1900s. Once 1800 production was moved from Jensen (with its typical early 1960s British orientation toward “quality” control) to Volvo in 1963, things moved along quite well for another 10 years. Volvo had its sports car, something that for some reason still seemed important to the marque. Therefore, the P1900 served as a kind of a beta version of an ultimately much more successful vehicle.
So it was certainly appropriate that in an event that showcased a whole line of Saintly 1800s there should be one of their few surviving direct ancestors.
Yes, it’s different for sure from the Facel II, but you know, I actually like the P1900 butt a bit more.
Otherwise, I stand by my assessment.
Related CC reading:
1956-1957 Volvo P1900 Sport: Volvo Tries To Build A Corvette, And Fails
Maybe not facile, but definitely very demure and very mindful 😉
I can’t say I’m as enamored of this car as Jeff, but it’s a nice find. But why did they call it a 1900 when it didn’t have a B19 engine? 😀 And while I’m offering my opinions, I’d say the PV444 and especially 544 were quite sporty, but not beautiful. But the wire wheels on the red 1800 visible in one of the pictures look just wrong. Whereas the wires on the Facel Vega are just perfect.
That’s one other aspect of the car that I couldn’t really figure out, but I realized that I was being confusing enough (particularly for those readers who might not care that much about Volvo naming convention) and so just let it be…namely, how come the proper successor to this car was the 1800 whereas this was a “1900”. I can understand naming the 1800 an 1800, but why wasn’t this car the P1400 or P1600 (which of course eventually came to be, later)? Then at least it would have fallen in line numerically.
Just one more bit of strangeness attached to this forgotten model.
Really arcane trivia from a Certified Volvo Nut™:
There *was* a Volvo B19 engine at one point… and its displacement was 2 liters!
Of course everyone knows the B20, the 2.0 liter OHV engine that powered countless Volovos up to and including the first year of 240 production, 1975.
When the basic block was re-engineered to an OHC configuration for 1976, it gained 0.1 liters of displacement and became the B21.
Except there was a special version of the B21, created solely for Italy and Israel (I believe) because those 2 countries had severe tax increases for cars with over 2 liters of displacement.
So those countries got a 199x? cc engine. I can’t recall if the B21 block was underbored, or if it got a shorter stroke crankshaft, but regardless, the displacement snuck just under the 2 liter limit.
But what to name this engine? Despite the 2 liter (ish) displacement, Volvo didn’t want to call it “B20” to avoid confusion with the OHV engine of that name, so they named it “B19”.
And there’s your really arcane Volvo trivia for today.
Except there was a special version of the B21, created solely for Italy and Israel (I believe)”
As far as I know, these “B19” engines also were available in Greece. If I’m not totally wrong, the displacement was 1984 cc – the same as with the later B200F engines for some Euro markets.
I have to wonder how many attendees at this show are customers of Portland,Oregon’s own IPD, a Volvo parts house. And being a recovering Volvo addict, I never even heard of the P1900.
Many, I would think. Anyone with an old Volvo has bought one thing or another from IPD over the years. Although nowadays there are more options for parts. VPAutoparts out of South Carolina has really stepped up and is bringing in all sorts of OEM parts from Europe.
I would never have guessed that IPD was still around. I’m not sure if I ever actually bought anything there, but certainly drooled over the catalog, even before I bought my 122S in 1975.
I too was unaware of these odd looking cars .
-Nate
we need to gaze upon one of the most lovely – in my opinion – European car designs of the late 1950s-1960s.
Well, they say there’s no accounting for taste…but in this case, you’re really off base a bit because this is not a “European car design”. It was styled by Glasspar’s Bill Tritt, in the good old USA. Which of course explains why it looks a bit amateurish, since Glasspar was primarily in the boat business, although they were of course trying to expand into car fiberglass bodies. Actually, Tritt was a great innovator, and really put fiberglass boats and cars in the mainstream. And he designed several fiberglass “kit car” bodies, including the G2, one of the first of its kind. (Image below).
I think it’s important in to understand the P1900 properly that it was an experiment to let Tritt and Glasspar build what was essentially a “kit car” as a concept that could be built in small scale to create some impact for Volvo in the US at the time, a time when these kind of fiberglass roadsters and such were a hot new thing (Corvette, Kaiser Darrin, and a number of other smaller-scale ones using chassis and drive trains from other sources.
In that light, it’s utterly understandable why the P1900 never got off the ground and why the new management at Volvo decided to axe it and develop a proper steel-body European-designed sports car to replace it, the P1800.
My post on the P1900 spells out the American provenance of the P1900 quite clearly:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/1956-1957-volvo-p1900-sport-volvo-tries-to-build-a-corvette-and-fails/
As to even comparing it, especially favorably, to the Facels, well, it’s a free country. 🙂 But I’m seeing something other than you are: a rather unfortunate front end on a somewhat dumpy body that is clearly a non-professional attempt to emulate some of the better European sports cars of the time.
I should probably go back and sharpen up my text, as what I was trying (unsuccessfully I guess) to convey is that I think the Facel Vega is one lovely design…and that’s in contrast to the P1900 which I think is just kind of dumpy and weird. Hence, not Facel and lending to the whole awkwardness (non-facile) of the P1900. The one exterior styling element of the P1900 which I think is “ok” (and might possibly be as nice as the Facel Vega) is the rear view. But that hardly makes up for the pinched weirdness at the other end of the car.
I think that the PV series is beautiful (albeit not sporty). That part I’m sticking with.
My mom always referred to the 544 which we owned from my age 3 to age 7 as a “fastback”. Years later I used that term as a descriptor for a 544 to a college friend who was a car buff. He corrected me: “You mean hunchback”.
” “You mean hunchback”. ”
That’s exactly the term they use in Germany for these cars: Buckel-Volvo. “Buckel” means “hunchback”.
I love the term “hunchback”. I used to call them “fatback”, which is not as clever. When I was buying my first car I was living at home with my mother. I was looking at a PV544 and my mother said that it was so ugly she would not let me park it in her driveway. In the end , for other reasons, I bought an Austin but the Volvo whould have been a much better choice.
Minor detail: those are Volvo PV544s, not 444s. Unfortunately that doesn’t make them any more beautiful. This is the first time I’ve ever heard them described as such.
Thanks! Fixed!
Do I see tail lights from a ’49 Chevy?
A less-kind person might possibly make the facile observation that only a man who has stepped from a Volvo 200-series could set eyes upon this car and declare it one of the most lovely creations of its time, but I am not one such, and won’t.
It’s interesting that so few still live, given the glassfibre, but then again, that underhood shot shows a standard of assembly that resembles something I’ve put together from IKEA, which might beg the question.
Excellent write-up of a properly rare CC. (Incidentally, when you describe an unwaxed car, and because I live where the practice isn’t needed or performed, I do immediately conjure an image that gives a new meaning to “a hairy Volvo”, but I’m digressing).
Is it just me or does it look like some type of fish front end? Maybe like a catfish?
I was thinking more like a Kissing Gourami than a catfish. But point taken.
Slightly off topic but what was so bad about the B30 engine in the 164? we took a 74 164E to over 100,000 miles before succumbing to rust. The only significant engine issues were worn injectors at 8 years and a stripped fiber timing gear.
Goodness, I had forgotten all about these! Finding one of 67 (or 68) of anything is quite an accomplishment here in CC world, so nice catch.
I can see why Volvo’s new management killed this one. A sports car that doesn’t look that good and doesn’t drive that well doesn’t make much of a case for itself.
Now? It is odd and quaint, which is all an old car really needs in my book.
My favorite Volvo shop, in San Francisco, Volvo Centrum, had a P1900. Hidden in the back corner, under a tarp. In its smokey blue hue, it was gorgeous.
That shop was also “the” place for the PRV motor fixing, so occasionally you’d see a DeLorean and I think I saw a Peugeot 604 there, as well. A great shop, now long gone.