As Ford prepares to jettison Volvo, it's worth noting what could have been. While Volvo's mindspace is mostly occupied by boxy wagons that you can't kill with neglect, road salt or repeated blows with a ball peen hammer, it's important to remember there was brief shining moment when Volvo was drop-dead sexy. I speak here of one model and one model only: the P1800. Wikipedia has plenty of rivet-counting revelations on this certified classic, but the bottom line is that Simon Templar's steed turned out to be an evolutionary dead end (along with an equally doomed and thoroughly hideous mutation called the P1800 ES). Perhaps someone at Ford thought they could add a little P1800 back into the Volvo mix when the company scarfed the Swedes back in '98. Or did they really think Volvo's preppy design language could morph from middle class stolidity to upmarket aphrodisiac? In any case, Irv Gordon bought a P1800 back in the day, piled on the miles and found himself a G-list celebrity in the process. Now that he's retired, Irv's got time to explore the possibilities of his hard-won status. Will someone get this guy an agent? If only "Broadway" Danny Rose was real.
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Personally, I thought the P1800 ES was just as beautiful as the P1800.
Irv is the man. IIRC, he was on Motorweek when Volvo honored him for hitting 1 million miles on his P1800.
Thanks for getting him to do a podcast. Irv is the man.
Sadly, I think Mazda and Volvo are the best Fords made. I suppose they might actually focus on their bread and butter cars now that they are getting rid of Volvo.
My dad had a ’71 and I still miss that car. Wish it had never been totalled by that stop-sign adverse woman. I think my dad still has the magnesuim rims in the basement. I wonder what Volvo would be like today if the 1800 had been a sales success.
It’s looking less likely that Ford will ditch Volvo. The two companies depend on each other too much. Most of Volvo’s current and future underpinnings are Ford developed at this point, and Ford and Volvo engineering and manufacturing are tightly tied up. So far, the price being floated as required for Ford to consider the separation is well beyond what anyone except maybe the Swedish government might pay.
Unfortunately, Ford needs every free cent of cash it can get its hands on to survive — I would be astonished if they kept Volvo.
That said, when I was a kid — maybe 8 or 9, a church member rolled into the lot with aP1800. Now this guy always had interesting cars — he had a Corvair Monza for a while, even a ‘Vette. Over the years he owned several of these Volvos, including the ES — and I thought each one was more beautiful and stunning!
I was at the Volvo dealer this past weekend — and really nothing struck my fancy. The interior of the new C30 is plainer and more plasticy than in a Corolla, the rear seat is really just for show, and there isn’t enough luggage room (with the rear seat up) for more than 2 grocery bags. Didn’t drive it — but seems to me the Mazda 3 has it beat.
Yes, Volvo is a safe, safe car company. Nothing sexy in sight like the wonderful, saintly, P1800.
/p
Charming guy, but for some reason, my not-so-well hidden inner skeptic is raising its ugly little head. His biggest repair in 3 million miles is a set of worn out brushes in the generator? He can afford to spend some $12 to $15k per year in gas, tires, etc. driving 100k per year (that is 8.3k miles per month; think taxi cab). And it’s not his only vehicle.
How do we really know he doesn’t hook his odometer to an electric motor at night? It wasn’t easy, but there, I said it.
Obligatory Jalopnik Comment: P1800ES = Volvo Shooting Brake! Super Swedish Breadvan!
Honestly I don’t think I’m the only one who believes the P1800ES is a good looking car. In fact, I think it looks better then the regular P1800. Sometimes, Robert, I worry about your esthetic sensibilities. Then again I recently read in a magazine writers opinion that the Lexus SC430 was attractive. Now that’s worrisome.
I read somewhere that he has replace a lot of parts over the years but for the most part and with all the miles it’s been reliable. I think I read that when he had 1.6 million. I do remember my dad replacing the generator(or alternator) 3 times and his only had 140K before it was sausaged. It ate shocks and tires too, electronic overdrive died before 100K, paint whats that. But man was that car fun to ride in, and solid feeling considering swiss cheese rust problem it had. I don’t believe he has zero rust unless he drove it 3 million miles in a bubble.
I agree with Robert the ES(station wagon) was fugly and still is, I saw an orange one a few weeks ago by someone who owned 2 P1800’s. It looks like a fat toad.
Variety is the spice of life. If Robert thinks the P1800ES was ugly, well, that’s his right. But I’m one of the many who thought then, and still thinks now, that the ES was quite beautiful and oh, so cool. There are a number of so-called “sport” wagons on the market today. I wish several of them came with a single door on each side and a hatch at the back, al la P1800ES and Chevy Nomad.
I earned the enmity of the presenter at a press preview for the (then new) 1999 BMW M coupe, after he’d compared it to the MGB-GT, when I piped up and said, “What about the Volvo 1800ES?”
With a withering stare, he responded by saying, “That’s not a sports wagon.” And that was that, as I resisted the urge to add, “Well, not to those of us who are into Volvos.”
True enough, the P1800 ended up once on display in MOMA (Musuem of Modern Art) in New York City. But having never driven one, I can only take the word of Jim O’Keefe, who mans the office of a Volvo repair shop in Seattle, who once told me, “They’re terrible” about how the front end of a P1800 handles – or rather, doesn’t.
But one man’s “terrible” can be another man’s “wonderful” as the story of Irv Gordon attests; and I believe he has all those miles on the car. In one magazine article, he said that after he first bought the car new, back in 1966, he went out and drove and drove and drove, until he had gotten to the point where a recommended service interval was required. When he pulled into the dealership’s service department, after racking up all those miles – about 3,000 or so –
in just one weekend, reportedly, they looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Love will do that to a guy.
all these high mileage types are proactive and do their own maintenance. how many people do you know that carry a set of brushes with them because they feel a generator build coming? be one with the machine.
sorry bob, i too prefer the es to the coupe. and i love the 30cs!