The Volvo Sport (also known as P1900) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

-bodied roadster of which sixty-eight units were built, first 19 by Glasspar Company in California, between 1956 and 1957 by

Volvo Cars Volvo Cars ( sv, Volvo personvagnar, styled VOLVO in the company's logo) is a Swedish multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Torslanda, Gothenburg. The company manufactures SUVs, station wagons, and sedans. The company's ...

Assar Gabrielsson Assar Thorvald Nathanael Gabrielsson (13 August 1891 – 28 May 1962) was a Swedish industrialist and co-founder of Volvo. Early life Gabrielsson was born on 13 August 1891 in Korsberga, Skaraborg County, Sweden, the son of Gabriel Nathanael G ...

, Volvo's president and founder, got the idea for the car when he saw a

Chevrolet Corvette The Chevrolet Corvette is a two-door, two-passenger luxury sports car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet since 1953. With eight design generations, noted sequentially from C1 to C8, the Corvette is noted for its performance and distinctive ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and wanted to make something similar. He asked Bill Tritt of

Glasspar The Glasspar boat-building company was started in 1947 when Bill Tritt began building small fiberglass boat hulls in his Costa Mesa, California fiberglass shop. Origins Bill Tritt had a keen interest in boats and Automobile, cars before World War I ...

, an American

boatbuilder Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires. Construction materials and methods Wood W ...

in Santa Ana,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, to design and tool a fibreglass/reinforced

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...

body, which was later produced in Sweden. Glasspar was a pioneer in building fiberglass auto bodies from 1951 to 1957.

Erik Quistgaard Erik Quistgaard (3 June 1921 – 11 February 2013) was a Danish engineer and Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) from 1980 until 1984. As head of ESA, he oversaw early stages of the Ariane launcher's development, as well as Space ...

was appointed as development team leader. The car was built on a tubular-steel

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

and used the Volvo PV444's 1414 cc engine producing . The engines (B14A and B16B ) were fitted with twin

SU carburetor SU carburettors were a British manufacturer of constant-depression carburettors. Their designs were in mass production during most of the twentieth century. The S.U. Carburetter Company Limited also manufactured dual-choke updraught carburettor ...

s, driving through a three-speed manual

gearbox Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), differe ...

. Many other parts were taken also from the Volvo PV444. Demand was low, and the build quality was not up to Volvo standards.

Gunnar Engellau Gunnar is a male first name of Nordic origin (''Gunnarr'' in Old Norse). The name Gunnar means fighter, soldier, and attacker, but mostly is referred to by the Viking saying which means Brave and Bold warrior (''gunnr'' "war" and ''arr'' "warrior ...

, who replaced Gabrielsson as president in 1956, took one for a drive on a holiday weekend and was dissatisfied enough that on returning to his office the following week cancelled the remaining production. "I thought it would fall apart!" is the legendary quote. The Volvo chassis design was far too flexible to accommodate a fiberglass body, and that Volvo resisted recommendations by Glasspar to alter the frame to address their concerns. The total "Volvo Sport" production was sixty-eight cars, plus four or five

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

s. Forty-four were built in 1956, mostly for the Swedish market, and most still survive. The bulk of 1957's production went to the U.S. and elsewhere, and fewer of these are still in existence. However the development of the P-1900 led to the tuning of the B-16 engine, which was later put into the PV 444 series, making this car powerful enough to enter the US market.

Gallery

File:Volvo P1900 1956 3.jpg, 1956 Volvo Sport Cabriolet File:Volvo P1900 1956 2.jpg, 1956 Volvo Sport Cabriolet File:Volvo P1900 1956 4.jpg, 1956 Volvo Sport Cabriolet File:Volvo P1900 1956.jpg, 1956 Volvo P1900 Sport Cabriolet File:1956 Volvo P1900 dash.jpg, 1956 Volvo P1900 Sport Cabriolet interior

References

External links

* Czap, Nick (February 18, 2010).
"Unrequited Longing for the 67th Volvo"
''

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''. Accessed February 24, 2010. {{Early Volvo Cars timeline P1900 Sports cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 1956 Roadsters