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From Swedespeed.com Industry News Remember that stunning 1967 Amazon that sat on Volvo's stage at SEMA a few years back? It was the work of a Swedish-born designer named Mattias Vocks, who just happens to have a pretty cool day job. He builds Koenigseggs. As such, he's obviously more than qualified to deliver one fantastic project car.
Except now, it looks like the Volvo-loving supercar builder will have two stunners in his garage. As you see here in full CAD splendor, he's working on a new creation; a modern day P1800 coupe. That Amazon was wonderful, but based on these renderings, the P1800 should easily take the title of Vocks' finest creation.
To build the car, he's reportedly teamed up with Bo Zolland and his Swedish design firm, Vizualtech. Together, Zolland and Vocks have made a few modern enhancements to the P1800's timeless design, including a new rear diffuser, a flat, aerodynamic underbody, and a front that's longer and more streamlined. The resulting product is beautiful and manages to show just how similar to a '60s Ferrari the P1800 managed to be. Except this new creation has one elegant touch of which even Ferraris might be jealous. The renderings show a panoramic glass roof that that starts eight or so inches rearward of the windshield and merges seamlessly into the rear window.
Of course, modern aerodynamic updates would be nothing without some modern power lurking under the long, scooped hood. The team says the car will be powered by the Yamaha-built V8 offered in Volvo's S80 and XC90 models. If this were our project, we'd go with a lighter T5 motor or perhaps even the new twin-turbo D5 diesel for something more fitting with the times albeit less classic. However, neither of those engines would be so easily tweaked to deliver 600 turbocharged horsepower, and we expect neither would sound as wonderful as a rumbling tuned 4.4-liter. All that power is planned to run through a six-speed manual gearbox to the rear wheels, where it should deliver a pretty wild launch. It appears that a bit of added length (70 mm is mentioned in Viztech's description) has been added between the front wheel wells and the A-pillars. We recall Hot Rod magazine doing a V8 conversion back in the 1800 era and running into clearance issues with the firewall; we suspect that the crafty Swede responsible for this car has planned ahead to avoid the same problem.
According to Auto Express, Vizualtech is planning to offer this retro cruiser in very limited production, but the blog doesn't say when that'll happen. We can't wait to see what develops and hopefully, we'll be seeing this car in the flesh at SEMA 2009. Vocks' last creation was shipped over by Volvo as the result of a vote by enthusiasts at the Vallakra Custom Car Meet near Landskrona, Sweden, though Volvo's current state of transition in review or to new ownership may not offer Vocks the same opportunity this time around. We'll keep our fingers crossed though that the 1800 makes the trip across the pond.
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