P1800s - Best upgrades

[Groundes-Peace]

The red with cream leather interior is an interesting combination for '60's cars, especially Italian marques like Ferrari, but I wonder what that would be like on a P1800?
Perhaps some one could photoshop the look?
It is a long way from originality, but seeing people have done retrims with red leather dashboards etc, ....... maybe......
Cream leather was used extensively by Aston Martin and Jensen in the 1960's.

[Badgley]

See link below;

http://www.shannons.com.au/auctions/.../#.VcMde4qkqnM

[Ron Kwas]

Badgley;

...a belated Welcome to the Forum from me also...

Congrats on your acquisition! The OE red is more common for the earlier (pre-injected) 1800s (I don't believe it was even offered on the later cars)...if you change color to this red, your car would look much like Irv Gordon's three million miler...and it would sure be gorgeous with a tan interior!

I expect your car to be an early '69, as that was the year Volvo changed over to D-Jetronic injection, and many other changes...a bit of checking and a review of chassis numbers would quickly confirm this...

Getting back to your original upgrades question...I highly recommend front and rear anti-sway bars but keeping the OE springs unchanged...this in combination with modern tires will work wonders for modernizing the road-holding and handling of the car.

If vehicle still has a Generator (which I expect a carberrated chassis would), changing over to an Alternator along with a 140 style multi Fuse Block which allows separating electrical loads (plus loosing those terrible OE Lucas FBs) is a very worthwhile electrical upgrade and recommended. Here stateside, I would recommend a Delco Alt, but a late Bosch with integral Reg would be better for you from a commonality standpoint.

Modern Halogen headlights (but which do not draw more current than the originals) are available and also nice when combined with refurbishing the harness and connections along the entire current path from source, to switch, to interconnects, to chassis returns...resist the temptation to follow others advice to add relay headlight control...it's just not necessary when the entire current path has been sorted and is back to performance levels when new (meaning Loads get full voltage!)

...the same general statement applies very much for Brakes!!...brought back to "as new" levels of performance, OE Brakes are quite good.

That's it for now...for details, on these suggestions as well as others, I invite you to visit the Sw-Em.com site.

Cheers from Connecticut!

[mike gilbert]

Originally Posted by Badgley

Now you've gone and thrown a spanner in the works. Every colour code 80 car I've seen online looks really mundane and the 98 colour code looks amazing but as the 98 wasn't offered in '69 I was reluctant to change to a colour that wasn't originally available but now with that picture of the 80 code grey....

has that car in the photo had some of the chrome trim removed? If so, would love to see what it looks like with the chrome. The added benefit of the grey is that I could have the red interior which is amazing (I think red on red would be too much)

I'm torn now, 80 colour grey with red interior or red with a cream leather interior (not sure if this was originally offered but does look good)? This is becoming a much tougher choice than I first thought.

You've misunderstood me Badgley. The grey on the car in the photo is code 98 grey which is the right colour for a 1969 car, if you choose to go with it. Its not 80 which is darker and would be the wrong shade. And 98 Grey would have come with a red interior. The only red P1800's with a cream interior were the Jensen cars not the Swedish ones, so that colur scheme would be less original than going with 98 Grey and a red interior.
check out http://volvo1800pictures.com/
and you can see the 1969 colours.

[Groundes-Peace]

The website under Main Gallery shows for 1969 the seven colours Volvo was using. Unfortunately the example of grey colour 98 -the car is in poor condition and the paint looks very dull/flat and the interior very faded.

[Badgley]

Originally Posted by mike gilbert

You've misunderstood me Badgley. The grey on the car in the photo is code 98 grey which is the right colour for a 1969 car, if you choose to go with it. Its not 80 which is darker and would be the wrong shade. And 98 Grey would have come with a red interior. The only red P1800's with a cream interior were the Jensen cars not the Swedish ones, so that colur scheme would be less original than going with 98 Grey and a red interior.
check out http://volvo1800pictures.com/
and you can see the 1969 colours.

Yeah, you're right - I got the numbers the wrong way around but I do prefer the Graphite grey from the earlier cars which weren't available at the time and I doubt I'd go with the cream leather as it also wasn't original but it does look nice. I think it's likely we'll stay with the red and black leather to keep it all original but it's really hard when you know you have to do a complete restoration when there are so many possibilities.

[mike gilbert]

Originally Posted by Badgley

Yeah, you're right - I got the numbers the wrong way around but I do prefer the Graphite grey from the earlier cars which weren't available at the time and I doubt I'd go with the cream leather as it also wasn't original but it does look nice. I think it's likely we'll stay with the red and black leather to keep it all original but it's really hard when you know you have to do a complete restoration when there are so many possibilities.

Yes making the right decision is tough but having options is one advantage of restoring over buying an original or finished car. Choosing from what was then available is the nearest you'll ever get to going back to 1969 and walking into a Volvo dealership to buy one. It's a nice problem to have!

[Badgley]

Silly question but, how rare is the 2.0l P1800S? Just looked at the brochures on Volvo 1800 pictures are the 1968 brochure is the 1.8 and the 1969 brochure is the P1800e.

[ANDREWNT]

Originally Posted by Badgley

Silly question but, how rare is the 2.0l P1800S? Just looked at the brochures on Volvo 1800 pictures are the 1968 brochure is the 1.8 and the 1969 brochure is the P1800e.

Base on chassis numbers around 1693 cars produced with 2 litre twin carb engine. So the rarest of all coupe.

The only thing I would add to all the other comments if you want to keep it original try to make sure it has all the bits of trim etc it should have, if not getting searching now as some might take a while to find. Also make sure none go missing whilst its away getting its body striped and painted. This may seem obvious but often looking at restored cars many seem to have odd bits missing, mine had quite a few bits lost when resprayed by a previous owner years ago.

[amazon69]

Surely the best upgrade is to buy an amazon?