HISTORY OF VOLVO'S 1956 SPORTS CAR - P1900

[By David Hunt]

Volvo's P1900 owes its beginning to Assar Gabrielsson chief of Volvo. In 1953 Gabrielsson came to United States to explore the sports car field to develop a Swedish sports car. He was most intrigued by Chevrolet's fiberglass Corvette. Gabrielsson toured the Glasspar firm in Glendale, California which manufactured fiberglass boats and car bodies. Before returning to Sweden Glasspar presented Gabrielsson with a set of drawings for a fiberglass sports car. Glasspar eventually manufactured the Pl900 fiberglass bodies in California which were shipped to Sweden for final assembly onto a steel tube frame with Volvo's engine and gear box.

The P1900's first public showing was at Torslando airport near Gotenborg on June 2, 1954 and entered its first car show in January 1955 at Brussels.

Customer deliveries began in the spring of 1956 inwhich forty-four cars were produced and in 1957 another twenty-three for a final total of sixty-seven. Twenty-seven were shipped to the United States.

In 1956, Gunnar Engellau was named chief of Volvo replacing Assar Gabrielsson. Engellau concluded that the P1900 was too expensive to produce, not up to Volvo's standards and did not fit into Volvo's product line. In 1957, Engellau stopped production of the P1900 sports car.

Volvo's P1900 was Europe's first fiberglass car, Volvo's first sports car and was the inspiration for Volvo's more successful sports car, the P1800.