My name is Ola Øra, I am a 48 year old Norwegian at the time of writing this line, and I wish to publish my affection for one of my hobbies; a 1972 Volvo 1800ES.
Why am I doing this? And why is owning an 1800ES so important to me?
To answer the first question is easy. I have had a lot of pleasure and inspiration from reading similar web pages by other enthousiasts, so this is my way of sharing with them and others.
The answer to the second one is a bit more composed. The Volvo P1800 was in general produced and sold from 1961 to 1973, whereas the ES existed only for the two last years with a little more than 8.000 cars produced which mostly were exported to the USA. It was, and still is, a pretty rare sight on Norwegian roads, probably due to it's high selling price. My father bought a Volvo 145 in 1970, s0 I guess this was the main reason how I got my hands sometimes around 1972 or 1973 on a Volvo brochure where the marvellous creation of an ES was shown together with the far more ordinary 140's and slightly rarer 164's. We were a family of 6 plus the dog, hence the choice of a 145 as the family car was easily understandable. I remember asking my father why we didn't choose the much prettier 1800 instead of the 145, as both in my opinion were station wagons bearing the Volvo logo. I never got a good answer at the time, but I understand of course today that the 1800ES in no way could replace a 145 (useless back seat and little luggage capacity compared to the 145) and the very fact that an 1800ES at that time was extremely expensive in Norway compared to a 145 which in itself also was relatively expensive. However, since those days I have always admired the design and the charisma of this car, and I decided in a sort of way that I should one day become an owner of an Volvo P1800, preferably an ES.
Many years went by, however during my student days to become an engineer in Trondheim during the early eighties, I bought my first Volvo which was a 1959 PV544. I thought and still think that this also is a very beautiful car, although it used to be a very common sight on Norwegian roads in variable states of decay. I still own today a PV544, and treasure it almost as much as my 1800ES. Owning 544's became also my introduction to maintaining and repairing/restoring Volvos, and the fact that they were and still are pretty straightforward to hold due to their solid construction, ease of maintaining and good availability of spare parts was quickly learned and appreciated.
It wasn't until 2006 that I managed to realize my old dream. I had started to glance at available P1800's, but prices were high and their conditions were pretty variable. A quick look at an object would invariably reveal more or less concealed rust damages, and a lot of cars were modified almost beyond salvage.
This is intended to be the history of the Volvo 1800ES I ended up with, and its continued saga as long as I am going to keep it.
