Vehicle Description
This car to be sold at NO RESERVE by Worldwide Auctioneers
*Thursday August 15 at the Pacific Grove Auction in Monterey
1973 VOLVO 1800 ES SPORT WAGON
This car was sold new to its original owner, Dr. Robert H. White,
Jr., by Annapolis Motors Inc. in Pennsylvania. In 1993, the car was
purchased back by the original dealer and then held on the showroom
floor and maintained ever since. The car is finished in its
stunning original color combination of Volvo Red (code 46) with
black leather interior. One owner with known history since new.
Only 79,793 actual miles. Fuel injected. Air conditioning.
Extremely rare and desired Borg-Warner 3-speed automatic
transmission. The car is in spectacular condition and comes with
the original jack, tools, owner's manual, service manual and
maintenance records. This is a collector's dream! One of the nicest
examples of this highly desired and sought after model found on the
market today!
For a bit of fun, check
outhttp://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/tina-fey-feces-are-my-purview
An almost identical car sold at Bonhams Greenwich 2014 Auction for
$92,400 US!
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a8070/92k-volvo-wagon/
https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/147678/pristine-volvo-p1800es-sells-for-record-price-at-bonhams-auction
Here is an interesting history on the P1800 by Dan Jedlicka:
1961-73 Volvo P1800
The Volvo P1800 sports coupe seemed to come out of nowhere. It took
everyone by surprise when it arrived in 1961 because Volvo was
considered a sober Swedish automaker known to most Americans for
plain-looking, rugged family cars.
Volvo actually had made a few fiberglass-body sports cars called
the Sport in the 1950s, but they came and went so fast you missed
them if you blinked.
Volvo was in fact far more adventuresome than most Americans
thought. Assar Gabrielsson, Volvo's founder, had come to the United
States in 1953 to study the market here and to examine the then-new
fiberglass-body Chevrolet Corvette at its Flint, Mich., assembly
line. He felt that money could be made with a fiberglass body
sports car.
Volvo's first family car for the American market was its PV444
two-door sedan, which had been sold in Sweden for years but arrived
here in 1956, looking much like a 1946 Ford. It was light and fast
enough to beat sports cars on tracks with its rigged dual
carburetor four-cylinder engine and floor-mounted
manual-transmission shifter.
Gabrielsson arranged to have California's Glasspar outfit, which
made fiberglass bodies for the zoomy Kaiser-Darrin sports car,
build a prototype Volvo sports car using PV444 components. The
rather awkward-looking Sport debuted at the Brussels Motor Show in
1955, and brochures for the car were printed for the U.S. market.
But few here even knew about the PV444, so there were hardly any
takers for the Sport. Only 67 were made in 1956 and 1957 before the
car was dropped.
But the Sport's failure didn't discourage Volvo, which continued to
eye the booming U.S. sports car market. Helmer Petterson, who had
styled the 1944-57 PV444, convinced new Volvo chief Gunnar Engellau
to try another sports car for the U.S. market. Engellau felt the
new car-the P1800-would have a better chance of succeeding if
styled in Italy, the world's exotic sports car capital. Thus,
Italy's veteran exotic car design outfit Ghia and its subsidiary,
Frua, were contacted.
Petterson's son, Pelle, had gone to work for Frua and, as it turned
out, Engellau selected a P1800 design done by young Petterson. The
design carried the Ghia stamp, and Engellau didn't know young
Petterson had been involved.
The P1800 didn't look like the Sport or an old Ford. It had a
beautifully shaped low roof and curvy lines. Up front was a
Ferrari-style "eggcrate" grille, and modest tailfins at the rear
seemed to hover above bullet-shaped pod taillights.
Dashing actor Roger Moore, who later became famous for portraying
James Bond in movies, was widely seen racing around in a P1800 in
episodes of "The Saint" television series of the 1960s.
Many thought Volvo had taken leave of its senses when the P1800
arrived. The PV444 was quickly followed by the very similar PV544,
which also did well on tracks. It made Volvo widely known to many
Americans until dropped in 1965 and established the automaker's
reputation for durability and ruggedness. The P1800 thus seemed as
if it would be plenty trustworthy to its first-time buyers.
The P1800, which had a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine, soon became
the sports car of choice-mainly among conservative folks drawn to
the stolid Volvo nameplate. Most American sports car buyers stuck
with more adventuresome cars such as the Jaguar, MG, Triumph,
Austin-Healey and Chevrolet Corvette.
Volvo's production lines were jammed with its new Amazon sedan,
which was built with the PV544, and eventually succeeded it. So
Volvo farmed out construction of the P1800 unit body/chassis
structure to the Jensen auto facilities in England-although
production was transferred to Sweden a few years later.
The first Frua-built P1800 prototypes were at the New York and
Brussels auto shows in early 1960, where many showgoers doubtlessly
said, "That's a Volvo!?" Production didn't begin until
mid-1961.
Road & Track magazine grabbed an early production prototype and
reported that the P1800 "is a true sports car of a type we can
expect to become extremely popular."
The P1800 body was made of steel, not fiberglass. The sporty
interior had bucket seats and lots of gauges in an instrument panel
overly stylized for a sports car. It was clear Volvo was just
learning about the sports car market.
But the large front orthopedically designed seats were comfortable,
the trunk was useful and the heating/ventilation system was good,
which couldn't be said for many rivals. "Because America is a land
of extremes in weather, the (P1800) is better suited to American
use than are many imports," Road & Track noted.
The P1800 was mainly promoted as a two-seater, but had a tiny
backseat like the Austin-Healey sports car.
Volvo wasn't about to take changes on exotic components, so the
P1800 was based on the sturdy Amazon. The new car's dual-carburetor
four-cylinder engine developed 100 horsepower. A four-speed manual
transmission with overdrive shot power to a conventional
coil-sprung rigid rear axle. The front suspension also had a
commonplace coil-spring design.
The 2,400-pound P1800 was fairly light, so acceleration was decent.
So were steering, handling and braking.
But nobody said the P1800 was exciting. It wasn't supposed to be an
all-out sports car. Rather, Volvo just wanted a solid sporty auto
that would enhance its image and make it a few extra dollars by
being a steady seller.
Volvo kept refining the P1800. By late 1964 it transferred
production from England to its expanded facilities in Sweden. There
were minor cosmetic changes, and the 1964 model's name was changed
to 1800S. Road & Track said in 1967 that the auto "still has a lot
of appeal...and still is a soundly constructed, rugged car that
offers decent value for the money."
The engine was enlarged to two liters in 1968 and horsepower rose
to 118. Fuel injection was added to the 1969 model-called the
1800E. The dashboard was redone, and horsepower rose to 130, making
the 1800E fairly quick. It still wasn't the fastest thing on the
block, but could cruise all day at 80 mph. And it had a beefed-up
gearbox and new four-wheel disc brakes, besides new cast alloy
wheels.
The P1800 tai...for more information please contact the seller.
