I’m a contrarian by nature. If everyone wants it, I probably don’t. If everyone loves it, I’ll probably pick nits. It’s a blessing, I think, and also a curse. A blessing because I find myself constantly. driven to find new and interesting things - things which make life varied and fascinating and immensely broad. It’s a curse because I often feel somewhat assaulted by homogeneity, and that means I am flatly turned off by things which are legitimately wonderful. Like the air-cooled Porsche 911, which has become so ubiquitous in the last ten years I genuinely find it difficult to see photos of any more of them in my Instagram feed. Or a Rolex Submariner. How good a watch is that? How iconic? Very. But so overrepresented, and so price-controlled (read "price inflated”) as to feel downright offensive. Both the long-hood 911 and the stainless Submariner are wonderful things, legitimately spectacular, lust-worthy things, which I cannot lust after anymore. Both have been kinda… ruined for me.
Which is great in a way. Saves me a ton of money.
THE BACK STORY:I have been looking for a sexy 1960’s or possibly 1970’s GT car for a some time now, with the idea to make a project out of it. Do something unique and special with it. As I usually do in these cases, I have a roughed out short list of potential models, but I leave it broadly up to fate to decide what I’ll end up building. If I’m looking for an early Alfetta GT but stumble onto a chrome bumper MGB GT first? Fine, I’ll build that! If I’m looking for an early Opel Manta but stumble onto a Guilia Super first? So be it. It’s out of my hands. Fate decided, not me.
And fate did me a solid this time.
While looking feverishly at Alfasud Sprint Veloces and Mercedes-Benz SLC’s, I got a WhatsApp message from a buddy of mine in West Hollywood. It said: “My neighbor wants to get rid of this car. Should I buy it?” Attached were several snaps of a tired but seemingly complete Volvo P1800.
“Yes,” I replied instantly. “You should buy it.”
He didn’t, of course. I sometimes forget that normal, rational, sane people don’t just buy random, neglected, five-decade old motorcars needing total restoration so they can drag them home, rip them apart until their driveway looks like the crime scene of a car bombing, and essentially leave them that way for years while their wives prepare and test various alibis for spousal murder. But I am not normal, rational nor sane, so I bought it. And as I type it is on its way to Spain.
What did I pay? It doesn’t matter. This deal is never going to make any financial sense. It will cost more to get the car here and get Spanish tags for it than it’s worth. This is not a business decision. This is an affair of the heart. This is about rescuing a rather forlorn but deeply sexy Volvo from a curbside in Hollywood, helping out the friend of a friend, and securing a promising future for the car he has always loved but can no longer care for. There is romance here, goddammit. This was an ethical and moral necessity.
What, exactly, did I buy? Well… I’m not entirely sure about that either, save the broad strokes. It’s a 1970 Volvo P1800E, which makes it the first year of the Bosch injected cars, and the first with the later, Smiths-gauged dashboard. It’s sitting in “Sahara Yellow,” an original color for year, but whether or not the paint (or even the color) is original remains to be seen. The original cloverleaf wheels still retain their chrome trim rings, which is promising. They are hard to come by, those. Mileage? No idea. Rust? Yeesh. I’m sure there is some, yes. How much? We will find out. I have not seen a single photo of the interior, and don’t care to until the car arrives here. It doesn’t run, and hasn’t in 15 years, but beyond that little is known about the mechanical condition when it was parked. Even in the best case scenario, cars do not, ahem… enjoy being summarily parked for a decade and a half. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, goes to shit in that amount of time stationary. So I suspect I’m in for a full teardown and rebuild. Chassis up.
So we will get it here, tear into it, and get to work.
THE PLAN:Ah, the plan. Yes. THE PLAN!! It is already taking shape. I hate to give away too many details, but I also hate to be a tease. Let’s try to strike a balance.
If you follow Autology, I think you already know my aesthetic. I believe every vehicle has a soul, and a raison d’etre. I believe every car has a time and a purpose. I’m deadly serious, by the way. This isn’t me “farting words.” I genuinely believe this stuff. I think most vehicles have, sort of… lingering legacy problems which date back to their original conception. I believe some cars were born too early, and belong in a slightly later era. Others were born too late. Some vehicles look like something they aren’t, others were marketed slightly incorrectly, and advertised as something they shouldn’t have been. Some vehicles have engines which don’t suit them, or driving characteristics which aren’t in line with what people expect. Some vehicles are inherently pretty but have ugliness later thrust upon them by overeager marketing departments or heavy handed “refresh” styling updates. The list goes on. But inside all of this mess and chaos, somewhere there is truth. Somewher the true, unvarnished, unsullied soul of the vehicle lies.
My goal, with any build, is to try to find and reveal that truth. Address every single one of those legacy problems and coax the true car out.
Designed by Pelle Petersen under the tutelage of Pietro Frua, the P1800 has a decidely Turinese, early 1960’s Italian look to it. It’s gorgeous and yet restrained, in the way maybe a 250GT Boano is, or an Aston Martin DB4. It’s far more “Maserati 3500” than “PV444.” But there is still too much staid, dowdy chrome adornment and detailing daubed onto its curves, and the result is a bit too… “Swedish orthopedic shoe” for my taste. I don’t intend to reinvent an already mouth watering wheel here, but the general lines will be distilled back to their elemental Frua goodness. I don’t like any radiator grille ever fitted to any P1800, so that will be different. These cloverleaf alloy wheels don’t suit the look and feel I have planned, so they will be replaced, but not with the ubiquitous “Minilite” style that every third P1800 wears (see “contrarian” above.) The wheels are a surprise. It will be lower, stiffer, snarlier, and more elemental. Are you seeing it yet? What color is it in your mind?
The interior? Again, there will be a lot more different than the same. Think 60’s Italian GT car, but with a sporting bent. A little more spartan than you might imagine, but not uncomfortable. It will be a serious cockpit for a serious piloto, but not someplace you couldn’t spend an entire day if you wanted to.
And the mechanicals? Sharpened. Stiffened. Tuned. Massaged. But not revolutionized. It will be a “Club Sport” version of the P1800. I don’t think anything will be on the car that couldn’t have been on it, theoretically anyway, in the late 1960’s. But the engine will be massaged to produce around 20% more power than stock. The suspension will be lower, stiffer and more responsive. Everything from the intake to the exhaust to the lighting will receive attention. The result, I think, will be a car with all the reliability and ease of use the P1800 is famous for, but with an angrier, less gentle edge. More Stieg Larsson than Bjorn Borg. The goal is not outright speed. The goal will not be found in numbers. The goal is a feeling. A dynamic. Something you sense when you see it and drive it.
So stick around. Let me know what you’d do to it if it were your project. Tell me details you’d include or delete. These builds are always evolving art projects, and collaboration is fun. And stay tuned and check back for updates. We won’t be sleeping on this one.