Volvo has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of what it describes as a ‘true cosmopolitan’: the iconic P1800. And when you remember that this sportiest of all classic Volvos was planned in Sweden, designed in Italy, built in Britain and went on to be a major success in the USA, you can’t really argue with that claim.

A lack of production capacity forced Volvo to look towards overseas production. And the end result was that Pressed Steel would build the bodies and Jensen Motors would paint and assemble the cars.

A series of production problems forced Volvo to move production to Sweden as early as 1963 (after 6000 cars had been built by Jensen), although it wasn’t until ’69 that body pressings were finally transferred from Pressed Steel in Scotland to Volvo’s press shop in Olofstrom.

The P1800 went on the achieve TV fame thanks to Britain’s The Saint series, and was transformed into a handsome sporting ‘estate’ in 1971 thanks to the short-lived 1800ES. The final Volvo 1800 (the ‘P’ part of its name had been dropped in 1969) finally rolled off the line in ’73.