Common Bonds?

I love those crazy looking things.  They aren't particularly fast, but are supposed to be a great drive.  Why else would a guy put 3,000,000 miles on one?

I nearly bought one in 1972 --- it was an 1800ES - Estate "shooting brake".  If it hadn't been turquoise I would bought it - instead got a new Porsche 914 1.7.

Ya gotta love a sports car with fins - in the 70s. 

I listened to John Patterson speak about how "easy it is to work on","cheap to maintain"

and started to laugh and think about the Speedsters we drive and maintain vs. a NEW computer driven/water cooled Boxster, Cayman or 911.

Well Mr. Patterson would have more fun with a 300 hp S60R (and the AWD/4C suspension that handles like a dream), but say goodbye to the "easy to work on"/"cheap to maintain".  Only thing in common may be the rock solid construction/safety.

I love those.  One of my first cars when I was a kid was a PV544 Sport. Not fast but fun , very dependable and easy to work on. When I bought my Speedster I was actually looking for a P1800 or a PV544. I would still buy one today if I came across the right one.

My father had a P1800 a few years before I was born. They were big stuff for a minute, when "The Saint" drove one on TV.

I like 'em a lot too, and not just because, back in the day, the engines from those cars were a favorite swap into the MG TDs still trying to keep up with traffic. With those B18 engines, they sure could!

I always liked these also. Maybe about 20 years ago one summer day I heard a tire screech and a blam. Went out to the front yard and up the street was a real beauty all t-boned at the intersection. I didn't even walk the 30-40 yards to go look. It was sad.

Had a '70 145 sta wagon, w/ B20B engine, similar to the B18, I guess.  That engine ate a cam lobe, so I rebuilt it,at least down to the cam.  Don't think I had to do the bottom end also -- memory fades.  But it was a fairly staright forward engine, except perhaps for the awful Stromber-Carlson (i.e., SU like constant venturi) carbs.  Those were the pits.  I recall several Volvo fans mooning over the P1800.  Did not understand it then, don't understand it now.  Style-wise, it totally misses the mark, for me.  Maybe that's why some like it.  ???

PS, Auto trivia: when I asked somebody who I thought would know why the Volvo engine ate the cam lobe I was told that there was a period in the engine run where they over-did the hardening of the lifter surfces.  These are typically case hardened, as is the cam lobe.  Instead of making the lifter just a tad softer than the cam, so it would wear vs. the more expensive and difficult cam, they had it backwards.  So much so that the lifter surface became brittle. After a while, little bits of the hardened surface on the lifter would flake off.  Pretty soon there were pits in the lifter a millimeter or more deep w/ really hard edges, which were the features that in fact ate the cam lobe.  Once the cam surface layer was eroded, and the softer metal underneath was exposed, the wear accelerated.  I recall when I pulled the cam out, I could not immediately see the trouble.  But after a while, and looking carefully, and counting the featrures on the cam (OK, thats a lobe, and that is a bearing) I noticed where the lobe was supposed to be -- initially, I mistook it for a bearing.  It ws that worn.

I love those cars! But than as Max would tell you, I am the "Volvo guy"

And Irv Gordon is a great guy, and loves his little car more than anyone!

I bought a1970 P1800E when I got out of the service, it was a great cruiser with a B20 injected engine and electric overdrive on fourth. My current daily driver/truck is an 850 wagon and it just turned 340K on the clock.

I met at Irv Gordan at my first Carlisle trip two years ago and I think at that time he was closing in on 3 Million miles.

My pediatrician had a red P1800 when I was growing up late 60s/early 70s. I LOVED staring at that car. Doc drove that car until retired I think, but by then I had grown up and gone to a "regular" doc.

I think they were cool and still are. Pretty much love it or hate it styling though.

I remember as a kid in high school going down to the local VW/ Volvo dealership and drooling on the 1800ES wagons. I purchased a 1973 orange ES in 2002 and had it several years.  The automatic was the only drawback but it was everything i expected.

I posted this not so much for the car - a Volvo that they actually let stylists have a hand in designing - but for the reasons this guy likes his car.

For him, it's not just stylish, but of a time when there was a closer connection between a car and the people who made it. Just looking at and driving some cars from that time, you have the feeling that someone cared about how all the bits went together and how they all worked. These cars weren't shaped by algorithms or assembled by robots.

"I wish that there were more craftsmanship in the world, more artisanship, more people who understood that this is just like an endangered species."

I think most folks driving Speedsters today, steel or plastic, understand.

Agreed.