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| 15/10/2001 Volvo P 1900  The history Text/Photo: Richard Holtz Assar Gabrielsson, co-founder of Volvo with Gustaf Larson, had stayed in the USA many times since the thirties, visiting suppliers. It was during one of these visits in 1953 that he became aware of the Americans’ interest in sports cars. As Gabrielsson was planning to establish Volvo on the American market, he decided to promote the business with a sports car of his own. As examples, he used successful European imports with reinforced plastic bodies, such as the French Deutsch-Bonnet HBR 5 and the British Lotus Elite. advertisement He announced the production of a two-seater sports car in 1954. It was planned to build a series of 300 cars. Originally, they were only intended for export. In 1956, Volvo delivered the first cars to customers. 44 examples of the P 1900 were built in that year. On the 21 May 1957, production of the two-seater came to an end, after only 67 had been built. After an extensive test drive over a weekend, Gunnar Engellau, the boss at Volvo since the autumn of 1956, had decided that the P 1900 did not match up to Volvo’s quality standards and so should no longer be built. 38 of the 67 P 1900s built were sold in Sweden. Some ended up as the main prize in a lottery. The other cars went to the USA, Belgium and Brazil. Today, there are still between 40 and 50 of them in existence. According to Heinz Linninger, boss of the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, a well cared for P 1900 would cost at least 300,000 krona (65,000 marks). However, you hardly ever see one of these for sale.  |
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