The Fiberglass Car That Couldn't.(Escape Roads)

Byline: MIKE COVELLO

If you ask most people what they think of Volvo's drop-top model, they will give you their opinion on the C70 convertible. But if you say you mean the P1900 from the mid-'50s, you're likely to get a blank stare. With a production run of only 44 in 1956 and 23 in 1957, you should excuse your fellow man for not being familiar with this rare beast. Volvo's records indicate 25 P1900s made their way to the United States, and only seven are thought to remain. So, the possibility of a P1900 sighting is even rarer than a Ferrari Enzo sighting.

The United States played a large role in this little-known Volvo experiment. Assar Gabrielsson, then president of Volvo, was in America in 1953 (when Chevrolet launch- ed its fiberglass Corvette) visiting Glasspar's Santa Ana, California, factory. This fiberglass specialty company had just started building the prototypes of the Kaiser-Darrin sports car, and Gabrielsson was impressed with the advantages fiberglass had to offer over steel for smaller production runs. Besides being inexpensive and easy to work with, there was no need to make a huge investment in production tooling.

Glasspar's president Bill Tritt and general manager Jerry Niger struck a deal with Gabrielsson before he left California. They would design an open sports car that would fit on a shortened Volvo chassis, construct the molds and prototype cars, then help Volvo's engineers set up a production line to manufacture the fiberglass bodies.

Originally called the VolvoSport, a prototype made its debut at the Brussels motor show in January 1955. Customers did not take delivery until 1956, and the car's death sentence was pronounced in 1957. The new managing director, Gunnar Engellau, took one for a 750-kilometer weekend drive. Upon his return to work on Monday morning, he stated, "I thought the ...