August 10, 1999
Many of us grew up with neighbors that had cars in various states of disassembly in their driveways and garages. In 1979 in Orange, California, I was lucky enough to have several of these on my block. As I'd pedal my BMX bike around scouting for suitable curbs to jump off of and dirt areas to practice my best Evel Knievel powerslides, I came across a yard with two strange winged coupes and an odd-looking station wagon. One of the coupes appeared to be a parts car, the other had the roof roughly sawed off.
Being somewhat car literate (for a 9-year-old), I was suprised that I could not identify the cars in yard. As the summer progressed, I spent time watching the guy who owned the cars work on them and got to know him a little bit. He was quite a bit older (probably in his 20's), a red-haired Viking-looking guy named Eugene. Well, he explained to me every time I came by that these were Volvos, and that they were, in his estimation, examples of the finest in automotive engineering. I just knew they looked cool.
Okay, the stage has been set. Twenty years later, and I am still thinking about that car. I am finally in the market for an 1800. I want a coupe, with a roof. No makeshift convertibles. I want a car with the early, textured aluminum instrument panel and the constant section chrome moldings without the upsweep into the door character line. (I like the door handle integrated into the tail fin trim piece.)
Does the early instrument panel go all the way up to the '70 P1800E model? What is the first year for the straight door trim mouldings? What year did the U.S. market car get front side marker lamps? Was this only on the ES sportwagons? Every picture I have seen of the earlier cars seems to show a different wheel, wheelcover and trim ring combination, so I won't even get into that.
I am pretty sure what I am looking for is a 67-69 model year 1800S model but I am not sure. Any help on this would be great -- none of the reference books I could find had very good photography (front side and rear view shots of each styling change would have been be helpful). Oh well.
Thanks in advance for your help, and if any of your readers have any cars for sale that match my description, have them drop me an e-mail. -Rob Laster, rlaster@ford.com.
PS: If Eugene from Orange CA watches this page, thanks for the introduction!
Rob - Thanks for the account of your introduction to the P1800. I had to look up the answers to some of your questions in my copy of Bill Webb's book, Swedish Iron, which is as good a reference on the car as I have seen. Bill is coordinator of the Southern California chapter of Volvo Sports America club, so you should be able to find his contact information on the VSA website at http://www.vsa.org.
The aluminum-faced instrument panel was largely the same until the 1970 model year, except for the placement of some switches and idiot lights. The straight side trim moldings were introduced late in the 1966 model year. In 1968, a number of new safety regulations went into effect for all cars sold in the U.S., including front and rear side marker lamps. -Glenn.