Researching an article is always a troublesome thing for the easily distracted. One moment I'm attempting to simply put together a timeline of rallying in Africa, the next I'm looking at old pictures of Volvos.
Here's where I fell down the rabbit hole. In 1965, a fi eld of wellsupported factory rally teams landed in Eastern Africa, ready to do battle over 5,000 kilometres of diffi cult bush road and treacherous landscape. It was the unlucky 13th such outing in a race growing in popularity - a challenge that captured the imagination with exotic beasts and a beautiful, yet brutal terrain.
Day and night they raced without rest, and at the end of it all, a local guy beat the pants off all the pro racers in a handme- down Volvo that had already been thrashed over 65,000 km of the same stuff. The car had suffered severe abuse, yet Joginder Singh, known as the Flying Sikh or Lion of Kenya, piloted the scrappy little Volvo to his first historic win.
These days, Volvo is a luxury marque differentiated by its trumpeting of Scandinavian design. Mostly that means lots of slow-mo PR shots of extremely attractive blond people wearing mock turtlenecks and designer glasses, but there's also a lot of curvaceous sheetmetal and fancy-pants interiors.
Forgive me for saying I liked them better when they were bricks.
We had a Volvo when I was a kid. It was canary yellow in colour and shaped like a small cardboard box stacked on top of another cardboard box. It surprised me not at all to be going through old pictures of my wife's childhood and discover that her folks had one too. Same colour and everything.
This is how most people remember the Volvo brand, as a safety fi rst lump of Swedish steel that looked like it was screwed together out of plywood. It's a bit like the Ikea bookcase: everybody's had one at one point or another, it does a simple task with simple construction and asks very little of you. The apparently brute-simple design often inspired the term "Swedish tractor."
The fi rst Volvos rolled off the line in April of 1927 in a factory on the outskirts of Gothenburg. These early open fourseaters look pretty much the same as any car from the pre-war period to the inexpert glance, save for their signature square grille with a diagonal slash across it. This would become an enduring Volvo trademark that's still seen today.
The early cars were dubbed ÖV4, though Volvo fans might remember them as being called Jakob after the name day of one of the early prototypes. They were capable little things, with a modest 28 horsepower, and they seemed to handle the rugged Swedish weather just fi ne, being built with better quality steel than their imported counterparts.
At the same time, Volvo produced trucks and would later acquire a marine division. They built cars right through the Second World War, less affected than other companies because of Sweden's neutrality, and in the postwar period began actually exporting cars in some numbers.
The first of these was the PV444, a roundfendered 1940s car that looked a bit like a scaleddown Chrysler. It became quite popular, and between all variants, from wagon to coupe to sedan, Volvo sold half a million of them. It was a later version, a PV544 with a single-piece windshield and four-speed gearbox, that Joginder Singh would drive to his historic African rally win.
These things are basically indestructible, especially the later models with the 1.8-litre fourcylinder engine, the B18. This fi ve-bearing powerplant would show up fi rst in a far more curvaceous application, the P1800.
You probably remember the swoopy P1800 from the TV show The Saint, which starred Sir Roger Moore and a sleek, all-white coupe. Bodied by English fi rm Jensen, perhaps bestknown for their Interceptor, the P1800 has the looks of a thoroughbred but the staying power of a mule. One example, a bright red 1966 owned by Irv Gordon of New York, just cracked its three millionth mile last month on a trip to Alaska. Three. Million. Miles.
In 1963, Canada found itself written into the Volvo story with the opening of a Volvo factory in Halifax. This would be the only Volvo plant outside of Europe, and built PV544s, 122s and 123s for the Canadian and U.S. markets. Domestically produced 123GT coupes were actually called Volvo Canadians. If you ever see the Maple Leaf badge on a two-door, then that's a car assembled in the Maritimes.
In '66, Volvo leapfrogged ahead with safety features on their new 144 that included crumple zones, disc brakes all around, and a steering column that would shear rather than stab an occupant. It also had a twinned brake system so that there was a backup in case the brakes failed.
Volvo had already invented the three-point seatbelt in 1959 and, having seen how important it was, released the patent so other companies could use it. To a reputation for strength and durability, they added an aura of safety, which is probably why everyone's parents bought one.
But let's end up by talking about the nutty turbocharged models. Saab was fi rst of the Swedes to turn to forced induction, but the 240 Turbo was no slouch in the 1980s, and with rear-wheel drive was even a sort of prototypical drift machine for Swedish rally hooligans.
Volvo put turbo technology right into their wagons, meaning that the later 760 wagon could be spec'd with a manual transmission, rear-wheel drive and a turbo engine. That doesn't scream safety to me: that says "sideways!"
This sort of nutty station wagon behaviour would stick with Volvo right up to their switch to front-wheel drive with the 850 line, including a stint in the rough and tumble British Touring Car Championship. As the 850 came into production, it's worth noting that Volvo was still building 240 variants - nearly two decades building the same car.
While Volvo currently has some higher performance Polestartuned models, they're mostly a company of crossovers these days (just like everybody else). So let's wrap things up with one of the last really crazy front-drive cars, the 850R.
While the very limited T- 5R is perhaps more droolworthy, the 850R is even better as a future collectible as you could get it in wagon form and with a fi ve-speed manual transmission. Few were sold and fewer still remain, but there's something really Volvo-ish about a high performance station wagon. Safety, fast.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. If you have a suggestion for a column, or would be interested in having your car club featured, please contact him at [email protected]. Follow Brendan on Twitter: @ brendan_mcaleer.
