This year marks the 60th anniversary of a unique Volvo that, while unsuccessful, directly led to the creation of “sportier” Volvos and their subsequent introduction in the United States.
The name of the new car was short and sweet—Sport—and it had a short and plump body with a big grill that looked like a turbine. The wheelbase was 20 centimeters shorter than that of the Volvo PV 444, whose mechanics it otherwise shared. Under the hood there was a 1.4-liter tuned version of the PV 444 engine, with twin carburetors and 70 horsepower. The top speed was specified as 155 kph.
The Volvo Sport was the direct result of many reconnaissance trips made to the U.S. by the company’s founder and managing director, Assar Gabrielsson, in the early 1950s. In his quest to learn as much as
possible about the market before launching Volvo on the other side of the Atlantic, he met a lot of people and businesses in the American car world. One company that he came into contact with was Glasspar, in Montecito, California. As early as 1951 they had been building hulls for boats and bodies for sports cars using the relatively new construction material of fiberglass.
In 1953, Glasspar was tasked with designing a body, producing molds, building the first prototype, and training Volvo’s staff in how to design and manufacture fiberglass bodies. Back home in Gothenburg, Volvo’s engineers were ordered to develop a suitable chassis that would fit this new body. The project progressed at a rapid pace. By the beginning of 1954 Glasspar had delivered the first drivable prototype to Volvo, although it was still far from fully developed. The prototypes faced tough criticism during internal testing. The chassis was too weak, the plastic cracked, the doors fit poorly, and the three-speed gearbox was far from sporty.
By the time of the new model’s debut at Torslanda Airport, another two prototypes had been completed and Volvo was able to show it was serious about its sports car project. Those present were told that the car would reach the market in 1955, and that a first series of 300 cars would be produced, all for export.
In the spring of 1956, the first cars were delivered to customers in countries such as South Africa, Brazil, Morocco and the USA. By that stage the car had been redesigned in several respects and now had a canopy top roof and windows that wound down. The gearbox, however, was still only a three-speed. Production and sales were slow, and during the first year only 44 examples were built. In 1957, another 23 were built, but after the newly appointed managing director, Gunnar Engellau, got to drive a Volvo Sport for a weekend he decided that production should cease immediately! The car did not live up to Volvo’s quality requirements, and the company was losing money on every example it sold.
All in all, only 68 Volvo Sports were ever built. Surprisingly, many of the cars are still in existence, with the whereabouts of around 50 being known.
Despite the failure of the “Sport,” Volvo still gained useful experience from the project. Shortly after its demise, Gunnar Engellau commissioned a new sports car to be constructed from steel.
Four years later the Volvo P1800 was ready—and marked a significantly greater success for Volvo.
