The Volvo P1800 may wear Italian tailoring, but its story begins with a Swedish engineer and a secret that Volvo tried to keep hidden for years.
Volvo’s first attempt at cracking the American market came with the fiberglass-bodied P1900, but it was a disaster. Plagued by technical problems, just 67 examples were built before the project was abandoned. Yet from its failure emerged the idea for a far more refined grand tourer: the P1800.
According to P1800 designer Pelle Petterson, Volvo never intended to build an outright sports car. Instead, the company wanted a stylish GT based largely on existing Volvo mechanicals. The challenge was manufacturing it.
Volvo's factories lacked the capacity, so the company looked abroad for help. Enter Pelle's father, Helmer Petterson. While evaluating the troubled P1900 in Italy, Helmer had been impressed by the country’s coachbuilders and their ability to shape steel bodies.
He recommended that Volvo hand the project to Frua, the Turin coachbuilder linked to Luigi Segre’s Ghia empire. Volvo agreed.
What Volvo did not know was that Helmer had quietly arranged for his 24-year-old son to join Frua and submit a design proposal of his own. When Volvo requested five styling concepts for the new car in 1957, Pelle ended up working on all of them. Inspired by American cars such as the Corvette and Thunderbird, he developed the elegant shape of the P1800.
Legend has it that when Volvo boss Gunnar Engellau reviewed the proposals, he immediately chose Pelle’s design. Upon learning that Pelle and Helmer had orchestrated the effort behind his back, he was reportedly furious and ordered that the young Swede’s involvement remain secret.
For years, the design was publicly credited to Frua while Pelle’s role was largely forgotten. Even then, the P1800 nearly died before production.
Frua built the prototypes and Ghia was set to manufacture the car, but Volkswagen forced Ghia to abandon the project over fears it would rival the Karmann Ghia. Volvo eventually turned to Jensen Motors in Britain, which brought the P1800 to life.
It would take years before Pelle Petterson received proper recognition for creating one of Volvo’s most beautiful cars.
