Volvo history on September Auction #1 - A super early P1800

One of the earliest P1800:s in the world - A piece of Volvo history that is up for bidding in Bilweb Auction´s first September listings. 
 
 5 May 1961 a red P1800 was reported ready in the Jensen factory in West Bromwich, where Volvo had placed its production of the new sports car. Back home in Lundby, Gothenburg there was not capacity enough, PV 544:s and Amazons occupied the production lines. This red P1800 ”Jensen” got chassis number 38. Production was slow and had initial problems. Despite that the first car in serial production - chassis number 2 - was ready late December 1960, not more than approximately 30 cars were produced now in early May ´61. Number 38 was shipped over to Sweden and delivered on 18 May to the Volvo dealer in Luleå up north.
 
Now a jump in time to 1972: the Volvo 1800 as a model was on its way out, in just a year the last 1800 ES would leave the production line. A car dealer was now in possession of chassis number 38 and decided to perform an ”upgrade”, after all it was getting old. A new paint in mint green, a grill from a later model and seats from an 1800 E/ES were a few of the ingredients.
 
”Cool”, thought a young lady on the island of Tjorn on the west coast of Sweden and bought the car. But after a close encounter with a deer it was put away in a garage and didn’t get out until 2013 when a thorough restoration was carried out. It got back its original color and the steel rims with the sought after hubcaps was put back on. The C pillar emblems, unique for the Jensen models, were mounted. The ES seats, however, as well as the grill, were kept.
 
And here we are today: one of the world’s earliest P1800, restored, only 145 000 kilometers on the clock and fairly easy to make 100 percent original.
 
In the standard work about the model, the book ”Volvo P1800 - from idea to prototype and production”, by Kennth Collander and Mats Westerman, this car is mentioned as one of the 17 earliest still existing.
 
The auction closes on 1 September and the value is estimated to between 340 000 and 400 000 SEK

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