Beschreibung:

In December 1957, the first hand-built P1800 prototype was driven to the headquarters of Karmann. Volvo had hoped that Karmann would be able to take on the tooling and building of the P1800 and they were ready to build it which meant that the first cars could hit the market as early as December 1958. But in February, Karmann's most important customer, Volkswagen, forbade Karmann to take on the job as they feared that the P1800 would compete with the sales of their own cars and threatened to cancel all their contracts if they took on this car. This setback almost caused the project to be abandoned. The project looked doomed until a press release then surfaced with a photo of the car, putting Volvo in a position where they had to acknowledge its existence. These events influenced the company to renew its efforts with the car and it was presented to the public for the first time at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1960. Volvo turned to Jensen Motors, whose production lines were under-utilised, and they agreed a contract for 10,000 cars. The first production P1800 left Jensen for an eager public after its much troubled inception. In 1972 came the last model, the 1800ES, a coupé station wagon with an all-glass tailgate, sometimes described as a shooting-brake. This fantastic example presented in gold has been much loved and cared for by its present owner and was completely restored to its showroom condition as a surprise for his birthday in 2000. Since its restoration, very few miles have been covered and the car has been dry stored to preserve the work undertaken. This is fully documented in photographs, including its bare metal re-spray, which are available in the history file. With just 59,000 miles covered and in such lovely condition it would be hard to find a more desirable example.