I like details. Especially car details. The Volvo 1800 sports car – in P1800, 1800S, 1800E, or the shooting brake 1800ES forms – is a car that’s absolutely packed with good details. I want to talk about two of these details today, because I think they’re a great example of how much details like chrome trim can change the look of a car, and, in this case, I think the changes Volvo made were just excellent, even if those changes surprise me, a bit.
Well, I suppose one of those changes is to something more than just trim, and is more than just a detail, because it’s a pretty dramatic change to a bumper; still, it’s worth looking at.
I actually used to have a 1968 Volvo 1800S, and I loved that car; it was fun to drive, fairly easy to maintain, and I just felt fantastic in it.
It wasn’t perfect, of course, as the carbs leaked onto the exhaust manifold and the fuel filler wasn’t compatible with the trees in my life, and the beautiful body was, like a Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia, all one piece save for the bits that opened, so while it looked beautiful and seamless, any minor dent meant major bodywork. Still, I loved that car.
But back to the point! When the P1800 first came out, it looked like this:
The body of the car was primarily designed by Pelle Petterson, working under Pietro Frua’s design house. In fact, Volvo claimed this was an Italian Frua design until 2009, when they finally admitted it was really the work of Petterson, who was the son of Helmer Petterson, a consultant who was behind the design of the earlier Volvo PV544. No idea why they waited so long to officially acknowledge that!
Anyway, let’s start by looking at the front of the P1800, specifically That Bumper:
(photo: Hayman, LTD)
These “cow horn” bumpers (it’s not just bulls that get horns, it seems) are dramatic and striking, and they’re the sort of exuberant detail I feel like I should like, but I feel like they just don’t really fit the clean look of the car.
They don’t look bad, as such, but when Volvo simplified the front bumper in 1964, you can see the dramatic difference it made:
I think you have to admit, it looks so much better with the simpler bumper!
Again, it’s not a choice I’d have expected myself to like, replacing a unique part with a much more conventional one, but I have to admit it was very much the right call here.
The next bit I want to point out has to do with the 1800’s dramatic side trim and door handle:
See that swoopy strake of chrome that goes from the front of the car, follows that scallop shape in the door, then twists to ride along the rear quarter’s tailfin edge? It’s a dramatic bit of chrome trim, and it mostly works. The chrome door handle is pretty prominent there by the bend in the chrome trim, but unconnected.
This trim always sort of bothered me; it always felt like a bit too much, and the clunky interaction of that door handle and the trim there never felt quite right to me.
Volvo must have been thinking along the same lines, because in 1966, they made changes to that bit of chrome trim, turning it into this:
This trim, I think, is so much better! They split the trim into two bits: a low, straight chrome strip following the body crease, but going past the arch of the character line at the end of the door. Then, there’s an upper strip that starts as part of the door handle and then flows onto the top of the rear fin. Both chrome strips are narrower, too.
I think what really makes this so good has to do with how beautifully the door handle was integrated into the design. Just compare:
In the old one, that handle is just sort of stuck on there, but the re-design makes it part of everything, letting the line from the tailfins flow right into the handle with real grace. The lower straight strip from the front I think actually does more to highlight that beautiful upward swoop of the body’s character line than covering it with chrome did, because it makes it feel like more of a sculptural part of the body than some tacked-on bit.
I can’t think of a better example of how a couple small changes transformed and already lovely car into something really special. There’s probably something we can all learn from this, so I hope you’ve distilled exactly what that is, because it’s too early for me to be thinking that hard.
I prefer the horn bumpers, and with a bit of careful trimming you could combine the later doorhandles and blended upper trim with the earlier ‘swoop’ front trim for the best parts of both versions.
I want the horn bumpers and the later side trim. Best of both.