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The Volvo Museum was a treasure trove of the brand’s finest machinery.
Now permanently closed with many of the exhibits transferred to the new World of Volvo, the museum showed the brand made more than just bricks. It’s true that, even with its classic cars, the company often put a much greater emphasis on safety than on design.
But it has also shown a tremendous amount of creativity since its inception in 1927 - with many classic Volvos sporting stunning exteriors. Walking through the official Volvo museum in Gothenburg, Sweden, reveals how decision-makers injected performance and luxury into the brand’s line-up without diluting its image.
Let’s take a look:
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ÖV 4 (1927)
Volvo made its first series-produced car, the ÖV 4, on 14 April 1927. Sales manager Hilmer Johansson got behind the wheel of car number one to ceremoniously drive it off the assembly line and quickly noticed it only moved backwards.
The differential gear in the rear axle had been installed improperly. Shop foreman Johan Fingal fixed the car in 10 minutes and the celebrations carried on as planned. Volvo made 204 ÖV 4s between 1927 and 1929. Only a small handful survive today.
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PV 36 (1935)
Introduced in 1935, the daring PV 36 looked markedly different than Volvo’s other models. It wore an aerodynamic design characterized by headlights integrated into the body and covered rear wheels.
Many motorists found the look too futuristic and difficult to get used to. The PV 36 – which earned the nickname Carioca – was also heavy, underpowered and expensive. Production ended after Volvo made about 500 examples over a three-year period.
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PV 444 (1947)
Per-Åke Fröberg, Volvo’s head of heritage, told Autocar the game-changing PV 444 was ready in 1944 but production didn’t start until 1947 due to a labor shortage caused by World War II. The firm had over 10,000 orders to fill at home and abroad when it started making the PV 444.
The PV 444 – which later morphed into the PV 544 – deserves credit for putting Volvo on the map in the United States. Sales in America officially began in 1955 and it became the second best-selling European car (behind the Volkswagen Beetle) in California two years later.
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PV 61 (1949)
Volvo continued offering bare chassis into the 1950s. Most examples were transformed into pickup trucks, delivery vans, or ambulances but a small handful were promised a more exotic life as stylish convertibles prized by Sweden’s jet-setters.
This PV 61 was turned into a roadster by Stockholm-based coachbuilder Nordbergs in 1949 and fully restored by Volvo.
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Philip (1953)
In the 1950s, decades before the term ‘Scandinavian design’ became marketable internationally, Volvo designers often looked across the Atlantic for inspiration. The 1953 Philip prototype looked like an American car with its generous dimensions and big chromed bumpers on both ends.
It drove like one, too, because it used a 120hp V8 engine designed in-house by Volvo. The firm notes the Philip remained a one-off model because it would have cost far too much to mass-produce. The V8 engine later powered trucks and boats, however.
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Sport (1954)
On paper, Volvo’s first sports car closely resembled the original Chevrolet Corvette. Called Sport, it took the form of a two-seater roadster with a fiberglass body, an eye-catching exterior design and wall-to-wall leather upholstery inside.
Assar Gabrielsson, Volvo’s co-founder and CEO in the early 1950s, commissioned the car after taking a trip to the United States in 1953. Production started the following year and ended in 1957.
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Sport (1954)
The Sport sold poorly because it was expensive, it suffered from quality problems and Swedish motorists showed little interest in buying a roadster they'd have to park half the year in order to avoid hypothermia.
Volvo made 67 examples of the Sport, and it’s the only Volvo ever made with a fiberglass body.
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P1800 prototype (1958)
The memorably ill-fated Sport didn’t discourage Volvo from trying to make a name for itself in the sports car segment. In 1958, it showed a prototype called P1800 that accurately previewed a sporty coupe introduced in 1961.
The differences between the prototype and the production model were minor; early cars even came with two-piece bumpers.
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Rally-winning PV 544 (1965)
Brothers Joginder and Jaswant Singh won the 13th edition of the grueling East African Safari Rally in this purpose-built PV 544.
The modifications included squeezing more power out of the four-cylinder engine, adding stronger suspension components and fitting thick skid plates below the vital mechanical components.
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Rocket (1967)
Jan Wilsgaard, the head of Volvo’s design department, began working on a successor to the P1800 in the 1960s.
He considered two different options. The first wore a more conservative design that fell in line with what buyers broadly expected from Volvo. The second took the brand into uncharted territory. Officials couldn’t decide between the two so Volvo asked Italian coachbuilder Frua to build a drivable prototype.
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Rocket (1967)
Called Rocket, Frua’s prototype looked like a P1800 from the tip of the front bumper to the B-pillar. Beyond that, it received a longer roof line, an upswept rear overhang and a glass hatch underlined by horizontal lights.
Frua’s Rocket looked too extreme to fit into the Volvo line-up so Wilsgaard’s team selected the first option and fine-tuned it into the P1800 ES.
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164 (1968)
The 164 stood out as the first Volvo offered with a six-cylinder engine since 1950. The example displayed in the company’s museum is the first one made when series production started in 1968.
The firm notes the car spent much of its early life in Belgium. It joined Volvo’s collection during the 1980s with about 50,000 miles on the clock.
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VESC (1972)
The Volvo Experimental Safety Car (VESC) explored ways to make driving safer. Bumpers with seven inches of travel protected the sheet metal in the event of a low-speed collision.
Volvo installed front and rear airbags plus motor mounts designed to push the engine under the passenger compartment in a crash. Its most innovative feature was a rear-view camera provided by Mitsubishi Electric. It transferred footage to a television-like screen on the dashboard.
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244 (1974)
Some of the safety features baked into the VESC trickled down to the 200 series, an evolution of the 100 series with bigger bumpers, an improved chassis and a more contemporary-looking design.
The line-up included two- and four-door models plus a spacious station wagon. Volvo made 2.8 million examples of the 200 series between 1974 and 1993.
In hindsight, it almost single-handedly cemented the company's reputation for building safe, solid cars.
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66 (1976)
Volvo received the 66 when it purchased the car-building division of Holland-based DAF in 1975. Its version of the car received minor design tweaks and several significant safety upgrades like new seats with integrated headrests and a so-called safety steering wheel.
There were no major mechanical changes; the 66 carried on with a Renault-sourced four-cylinder engine that spun the rear wheels through a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Production ended in 1978.
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343 (1976)
Volvo’s purchase of DAF also included an unfinished project called 77. It was a brand-new car that shared almost no parts with the 66 or its predecessor, the 55.
Volvo finished the design and re-named the car 343. It went on sale across Europe in 1976 with a four-cylinder engine and a CVT.
The line-up later grew to include more powerful engines and, by popular demand, a conventional five-speed manual transmission.
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Electric prototype (1976)
Volvo’s 90-inch long electric prototype could have become the Smart Fortwo of the 1970s.
It’s one of two experimental battery-powered city cars tested on the public roads around Volvo's headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company quickly shelved the project because both prototypes were surprisingly heavy, excruciatingly slow and offered a limited driving range.
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262C (1977)
Volvo envisioned the 262C as a replacement for the P1800 ES. The two-door, four-seater flagship model was based on the 200 series and received the top-spec PRV V6 engine.
The list of standard features included leather upholstery, power steering, power windows, power mirrors and a three-speed automatic transmission. Early cars came with silver paint and a black vinyl roof while later ones were offered in metallic gold without the vinyl.
Bertone made 6622 examples of the 262C between 1977 and 1981. 75% of the production run went to the United States and only 200 cars were sold new in Sweden.
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760 (1982)
Volvo remembers it held product clinics for the first time while developing the 700 series.
The valuable feedback gathered from participants helped the firm understand what prospective buyers liked and didn’t like about the car and make changes before it arrived in showrooms.
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Light Component Project (1983)
Volvo built the Light Component Project (LCP) prototype to illustrate ways to make lighter, more efficient cars. This ground-breaking machine made its debut in Stockholm in 1983.
Volvo replaced iron and steel with lighter materials like aluminum, magnesium and composites. It notably made the doors out of carbon fiber, a material almost exclusively reserved for expensive race cars in the early 1980s.
Shedding weight allowed the LCP to use a relatively small 66hp three-cylinder diesel engine without sacrificing acceleration or top speed.
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240 Turbo Racing (1985)
In the 1980s, Sweden’s turbocharged car of choice wore a Saab emblem on the grille. Volvo nonetheless jumped on the forced-induction bandwagon in 1981 when it released the 240 Turbo.
It started racing the car in 1984 and sponsored two factory teams the following year in an all-out attempt to win the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC). Volvo took home the driver’s championship in 1985 after drivers Gianfranco Brancatelli and Thomas Lindström won six of the 14 races held that year.
The win almost didn’t happen, however. Race officials nearly kicked Volvo out of the series after questioning whether the firm had truly built the 500 cars required for homologation. Volvo executives famously waited until the end of their summer break to clear the company’s name.
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780 (1985)
Volvo again asked for Bertone’s help when it began the process of turning the 760 into a two-door luxury car. Presented at the 1985 Geneva auto show, the 780 arrived with an elegant design that arguably gave it a more balanced look than the 262C, its predecessor.
Volvo offered a high level of equipment and either a four- or a six-cylinder engine. Bertone made 8500 examples of the 780 until 1990. Most of the production run went to the United States and Japan.
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480 (1986)
Volvo broke new ground when it introduced the 480 at the 1986 Geneva auto show. The sharp, wedge-shaped model was the firm’s first series-produced front-wheel drive car.
The 480 complied with American regulations (hence the five-mph bumpers and the light reflectors on both ends) but Volvo abruptly canceled its plans to sell the car across the Atlantic due to the disadvantageous krona-dollar exchange rate.
76,375 examples of the 480 rolled off the assembly line between 1986 and 1995. The example displayed in Volvo’s museum is the very last one made.
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480 Cabriolet (1990)
Volvo made and tested a few examples of the topless 480 but ultimately canned the project. The 480’s aborted US launch likely had a significant influence on Volvo’s decision to cancel the convertible because America would have been the model’s biggest market by a long shot.
The company also remembers that several suppliers who participated in the project filed for bankruptcy during the model's testing phase.
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850 BTCC (1994)
Volvo raised eyebrows when it entered a pair of 850s in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) in 1994.
No one had dared go racing with a long-roof model before. Volvo’s entry did its best to fend off fierce competition from rivals such as the Alfa Romeo 155 TS, the Ford Mondeo, the Vauxhall Cavalier and the BMW 318i with 280hp from a five-cylinder engine. The team finished the 1994 season in eighth place.
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850 T-5R (1995)
The 850 T-5R was Volvo’s performance hero during the 1990s.
It packed a 240hp punch from a 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine. Volvo quoted a 0-62mph time of 6.9sec, which was quick enough to worry the competition from Germany, and yellow paint and a model-specific body kit let other motorists know they weren’t looking at a run-of-the-mill 850.
Volvo intended to build 2500 examples of the T-5R. The initial production run sold out quickly so it made 2500 additional T-5Rs painted in black and nearly 800 cars finished in olive green.
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XC90 Lego (2004)
This is the lightest XC90 that Volvo has ever built. It’s a life-sized model made with no less than 201,076 Lego bricks.
It’s hollow – it’d be a lot heavier otherwise – and the plastic body sits on an actual XC90 chassis. Five Lego employees spent 10 weeks building the XC90 as part of a partnership between the Swedish firm and the Legoland amusement park in California.
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YCC (2004)
Volvo presented the Your Concept Car (YCC) at the 2004 Geneva auto show.
It envisioned the design study as a car for women. It assembled a team of women engineers and designers to develop it and asked for a car that was easy to park, required little maintenance, offered smart storage solutions and boasted good visibility.
The YCC never reached production but some of its design elements influenced the C30.
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