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http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Norman_Watkins/humbersu.htm
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-47068/pv444.htm
"Irv was going home to have his car checked up before driving to Rhode Island, then North Carolina, then Texas.....Back in 1966, Irv drove out of the showroom on a Friday evening and simply couldn't stop driving. He didn't go home at all. That Monday morning, Irv pulled into the dealership for his 1500-mile service checkup."
Last time I was at GI Auto Salvage in NJ, there was a P1800 ES like this:
that had just come in. It looked like it had a lot of Bondo in it, but it was interesting to see that someone other than Irv had one as a daily driver recently.
-Andrew L
Yeah, they must be fun to drive, or Irv would have bought an 850 by now :-)
I think a key reason why few of them are on the road, as with many oddball '50s and '60s cars, is parts availability. Repair costs have got to be quite high if you want to use correct Volvo parts.
And, since they're not really popular cars, the few beaters that are available for parting out probably fall into the wrong hands (like GI Auto Salvage, as I mentioned above) and get crushed instead of fully parted. It's a classic case of the people who need the parts being unable to find them, and the people who have the parts not knowing where to find the buyers. That's why I love the Internet; things like eBay are really alleviating that communication problem.
-Andrew L
Body parts are near non-existant, the overdrive unit is fragile, and they rust at a good clip (hence the Bondo). Aftermarket resources are spotty, unlike say MG, Alfa or VW, which has extensive support for any piece you need, and at reasonable prices.
Can we say this without being cruel? P1800s are pretty much slugs not worth the cost of restoration.
But some people like them because they are very rugged and simple to fix. I myself admire these attributes. It really is the kind of car you can drive a million miles if you want to invest in that.
So what we have here is a very rugged car that looks like a sportscar (sort of, in a dorky Swedish kind of way) without any of the attributes or nuisances.
You can, however, with a lot of modification, make them fun-er to drive, (you want to go fast, how much do you have to spend?) and you can cure a lot of their failings with the right suspension and engine mods (the B18 stock camshaft is hopeless) but if you are looking for excitement generally a P1800 is not the place to look. This is just a Volvo sedan with a smaller body, that's what you got.
You should drive a stock one, though, and see if you are appalled or not.
I think of it as the '55 T-Bird of 60s imports.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I like the later ES models because they are fuel-injected and prettier as well; also they are worth less than the early cars but you get a lot more-- at least you get a very useful sport-wagon and a very reliable car, not bad for $5k-6K.
Some years ago my friend John and I built up his brother's P1800, with IPD cam, big SUs, B20E head from a later injected car, Mahle pistons, balancing all parts, slightly milled head, exhaust headers, foam air filters, rebuilt overdrive. It wasn't really "fast" but it sure was smooth and torquey. If we could have fitted power steering, Bilsteins and better springs and tires and seats, it could have been a very nice car indeed. Oh, sound proofing in the firewall, floorboards and transmission tunnel would have helped as well.
Interesting trivia note, the producers of "The Saint" really wanted Jaguar to donate an XKE but the deal fell through at the last minute and the P1800 was substituted. So the P1800 got a lot of undeserved publicity as a sports car (it could only go 107 mph and 0-60 in 14 seconds--not an XKE, but respectable enough for the times in which it was built).
I was also looking at a couple of '66 122 sedans for sale on Ebay yesterday. With that large steering wheel and really long gearshift lever, the car looks very inviting to drive, don't you think?
122s are very tough cars and in my book one of the most reliable cars ever made.
Yes, a P1800 is nothing more than a 122 sedan with a two-seater body. There were a few differences in the engine, like a useless oil cooler, but otherwise the same B18 engine as in the 122. Basically good strong engine, but a rather old fashioned pushrod affair.
Most old Volvos you see are very tired. Volvo camshafts die young on a B18 (too soft) and so these old engines aren't getting anywhere near the proper valve lift.
Okay, "basically" the same car as a 122. I don't think the "state of tune" matters very much, at least I never noticed any difference myself. What could it be, a couple of HP? Please let us know.
The 123GT is a nice car. I wouldn't mind having one. I believe they are all overdrive equipped, is that right? And there was something different on the dash, too as I recall. A tach, was it?
But these are all quibbles really. A P1800 is a 122 with another body in all fundamental aspects, just like say a Mercedes 190SL is a 180 Sedan.
It looks like what they did for the P1800 engine was raise the compression ratio and get about 115 hp out of it rather than 108.
For it's day the acceleration was okay, really, with 0-60 in something like 13 seconds, a second or two slower than an MGB. An Alfa Romeo was considerably faster.
All this approx. data is for circa 1970 or so.
Not much from that era would, honestly.
The 123GT is distinguished by tach and a tray on top of the dashboard. They also had the OD and rear view mirrors on the fenders and extra high beam and fog lights.
In other markets they had a single Zenith Stromberg setup in the B18A. This engine was installed in the base 121, 221 (wagon), 140, PV544, and the 210 larger 2 door wagon.
They are rare cars and more valuable than a 122 plain-o. It would be a nice car to have, the 123GT.
The twin SUs worked very well on the B18s--it was a very good combination. The single Zenith wasn't very good and it is totally obsolete by this time. I doubt you could even find a rebuild kit. Most people would be wise to convert to twin SUs, which are relatively simple and trouble-free.
Volvo later went to Strombergs, which I really hated. They were the vacuum-depression type, and developed more power than the SU but were hard to rebuild and adjust and ate fuel like crazy. The SUs were so sweet, you could adjust the jets and idle so easily, and rebuilds were very straightforward. About the only technical thing was that sometimes you had to rebore the carb for the throttle shaft wear.
FWIW, I had a 131 from '67 back in college. I put a B20 from a 240 in it. I ported the head myself (probably didn't do too good of a job), shaved off 2 mm off it, installed a 7:17 cam (pretty mild cam, about 270 degrees of advertised duration) from Timo (a legendary Volvo race motor builder in Sweden), and put it together. The car would out run many cars in the GTI crowd, plus consistently get over 30 MPG on the highway. I was tickled to death. The carbs were late model SUs that I had cleaned in a ultra sound machine for dentures (LOL). I bought re build kits and KD needles for the carbs.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that these cars are good for beginners to learn to wrench on. I know I ad a ball doing it.
The early Volvos are great to wrench on, very simple and straightforward, except getting the rear hubs off!!
Putting a B20E head on though is a great idea and throwing out the lame Volvo stock camshaft and timing gears also helps a lot to make the B18 a much better performer.
I used to work on the B18s and make them run significantly better by just rebuilding the distributors, cleaning out and adjusting the SUs and putting in NGK spark plugs. Some guys would try to advance the timing but B18s do not like this and I don't recommend it.
Also, all Volvo engines of this vintage should be run on premium fuel only.
It is true that these engines want premium fuel. Just about any engine from this vintage does. Advance the timing, and you'll have detonation problems.
I kept drumming this into Volvo owner's heads with mixed results.