Cars that enjoy very long (i.e. 15-plus-year) production runs are typically either very cheap, very exclusive or inhabit some sort of niche. Standard-issue family cars do not usually last this long, with the odd exception such as the Citroën Traction Avant, the Hillman Hunter/Paykan or the Peugeot 504. Oh, and about half of Volvo’s postwar models, of course, starting with the PV444/544.
Prior to the Second World War, Volvos were mostly reserved for an élite. They weren’t particularly showy or fast, just extremely solid, but also large. The company’s mainstay were trucks and taxis, and it showed. By 1942, it was clear that although Sweden itself would probably escape devastation, Europe would be quite a different place once the fog of war cleared. So the good people of Göteborg figured that the time would be ripe for a smaller Volvo car, as up to that point, the range was populated by larger 6-cyl. models that sold in the hundreds of units per year at most.
The PV444 was as modern as a European car could be in the mid-‘40s: it had a 1.4 litre OHV water-cooled 4-cyl. driving the rear wheels via a three-speed gearbox, independent front suspension with coils all round, hydraulic brakes and unit body construction. The Detroit-flavoured two-door fastback look was also perfectly in keeping with the times.
Fast forward fifteen years and here we are: essentially in the same place. It was rockin’ and a-rollin’ 1959 and the Volvo was still humming along with the Andrews Sisters.
Was the Volvo the worst offender in 1959? No, not by a long shot. The Beetle, the 2CV or the Ford Popular looked a lot older, and in the Ford’s case, were downright antiques down to the chassis. But again, these were very inexpensive cars. The Volvo was not a cheap commodity. It just did not include contemporary styling into its value proposition.
There was plenty of value there anyway, and it’s not as if Volvo had been sitting on their hands out of principle. Compared to the PV444 it replaced in 1958, the PV544 did provide a number of improvements to justify its new alphanumeric. The rear window lost its divider was made a lot bigger; the same happened to the windscreen.
Volvo had launched the 120-series Amazon in 1956, which ushered a brand-new 1.6 litre engine available in either 60 or 85hp (SAE) tune. The PV544 inherited this supremely reliable engine from birth, mated to a 4-speed gearbox. Later models, from 1962 onwards, received the B18 engine – Volvo’s famous 1.8 litre, also seen in the P1800.
Said gearbox was still operated by way of a floor shifter, which was also the case in the Amazon. Volvo was one of the very few carmakers not to have gone for a column shifter at the time. Barring automatic transmissions (and then only before 1972) and the rarely-ordered bench seat Amazons and 144s, gearsticks in Volvos always came out of the floor.
That long prewar-looking gear lever aside, the rest of the cabin is perfectly late ‘50s in feel, at least from this perspective. The linear speedo and the steering wheel came right off the Amazon. Great way to add a touch of modernity without spending too much kronor.
Volvo even installed three-point seat belts for 1959! Not for the back passengers, mind you. Hey, it was the ‘50s. Ashtrays were a darn sight more important back there than anything else.
This Volvo was sold new in Japan, if the license plate and the curious mounting of the mirrors are anything to go by. By 1959, the local car industry did have a few rivals in this category, such as the Prince Skyline or the Isuzu-built Hillman Minx, but it was still a better bet to go for the (far more expensive) Swedish option. Volvos could survive Scandinavian winters and already had a reputation for impeccable build quality and durability. Whoever bought this back in the reign of Emperor Hirohito knew what they were getting.
Volvo were in a different kind of position than other carmakers, including the Japanese, in that their domestic market was too small to be anywhere near sustainable. Panhard sold most of their cars in France, DKW sold theirs mostly in Germany, Studebaker in the US and so on. Those were rather large markets. Sweden in 1960 was a country of 7.5 million, so any carmaker located there necessarily had to export to survive. Which Volvo did with great success, as this PV544 exemplifies.
All this to lead the way towards a comparative table, naturally. Not the Japanese market, but the French one, in late 1959. This table will be composed almost entirely of imports, because there were not that many French cars in this category, and those that did exist were massively cheaper than the PV544: the Volvo nearly cost the price of two Peugeot 403s or two Simca Arianes. In this funhouse mirror type of situation, where substantial duties completely distorted the playing field, opting for an import was a real statement.
The DS is in there to further illustrate the oddity of the market, such as it was: for a few francs more than our dumpy little Volvo, you could get the most sophisticated European car of the decade in its fanciest trim, leather and radio-telephone included. In this crowd, the PV544 really stands out due to its looks. Cars in this category, no matter their country of origin, were nearly all notchbacks and quite a few had sprouted fins. The last ‘40s-era design still extant by late 1959 in this class was the Peugeot 203, then at the very tail end of its existence. And way too cheap to be included here.
The PV544 was still a new model in 1959. It had only been launched the previous year and still had a lot of arguments in its favour. The Amazon was taking over as Volvo’s mainstay, but the 544 was very useful as a market leader, so to speak. And it was also available in wagon form, known as the “Duett,” in many markets too, though strictly speaking the Duett can be considered as its own thing, given that it’s body-on-frame and has a different (leaf-sprung) rear end.
The saloon lasted until late 1965, but the Duett carried on until February 1969, a whopping 25 years after the PV444 was first unveiled. Between 1947 and 1965, about 440,000 PV444-544 saloons were made, of which the 544 (1958-65) represented about 240k units. Quite a few of these crossed the Atlantic, as Volvos started selling on the North American markets in substantial numbers by 1959-60, when imports started becoming a thing.
As Volvo’s first mass-produced model, the PV444/544 was the perfect encapsulation of substance over style. It worked so well that Volvo essentially made it their M.O. for decades: launch a perfectly well sorted-out (if fairly conservative) model, sell for a fairly hefty price and manufacture it until the dies are worn through. Volvo, making a virtue out of necessity since the mid-‘40s.
Related posts:
Curbside Classics: Volvo PV444 and PV544 – I Roll, Starting Here, by PN
Curbside Find: 1953 Volvo PV444 – Gothenburg Goth, by T87
Curbside Classic: Volvo Duett – The Most Versatile And Practical Volvo Ever, by Ingvar Hallstrom
COAL #5: A Volvo PV544 In The Springtime, 1964, by Stephen Hansen
To give you an idea of neutral-country pricing, in the US a Volvo Amazon and Peugeot 403 competed directly at about $2500 advertised POE price in 1959.
Even with the tariff set at a nominal 2.5% as it more-or-less was on import cars from the end of WW2 to the present administration the home-team advantage persisted; for that money you could get a Rambler Six (of the Classic-Rebel-Matador lineage) equipped to the same standard as the imports.
But which provided a significantly better driving experience for those that really cared about that?
And both the Volvo and Peugeot conveyed the owner a significantly higher social prestige status. From these points of view, the Volvo and Peugeot were absolute bargains. Ten or twenty years later, a Volvo or Peugeot would cost significantly more than a Rambler/AMC.
These PV544s I quietly refer to as 7/8 scale `47 Fords. I always have.
I like Volvo ads from the late 1950s & early ’60s, when the company began making its case for durability combined with “timeless” design. However, this ad (from 1959) is an outlier – the fashion eyes looming over the rather dated Volvo is pretty amusing. But it worked; like you noted, Volvo sales really took off in North America at that time.
The beige/pink, background softens the dated, swollen, appearance. Even the white stripe, tires help.
“The DS is in there to further illustrate the oddity of the market, as it was: for a few francs more than our dumpy little Volvo, you could get the most sophisticated European car of the decade in its fanciest trim, leather and radio-telephone included.”
For roughly the same amount of money, the Volvo buyer received a vehicle that, with half the maintenance effort (in time, money, and nerves), would last three times longer.
By the way – my favourite choice out of the bunch: M-B Ponton or Volvo Amazon
For roughly the same amount of money, the Volvo buyer received a vehicle that, with half the maintenance effort (in time, money, and nerves), would last three times longer.
And for a lot less money, the Peugeot buyer received a vehicle that, with half the maintenance effort (in time, money, and nerves), would last three times longer.
Volvos were downright rare in Europe back then, at least in Austria and Germany (and obviously in France) given the very restrictive import duties. I cannot conjure up any conscious memories of any in Innsbruck except maybe for some Swedish tourists in the summer. Like Porsche and a few others, Volvo really depended on the NA market very heavily. It would be easy to argue that they might well have struggled to survive (or at least thrive) without the NA market.
I remember how unusual it seemed when my aunt’s husband had an almost new 144 when I visited Austria in 1969. He was an automobile enthusiast and knew what he wanted. By then the import duties may well have been somewhat lower.
When it came time to buy my first new car (1967), I was enamored with smaller imports. But having endured several used Brit sport cars, I wanted something more reliable, especially since my new wife and I had discovered rallying.
We chose a Volvo 122 2-dr, a car that was very satisfactory (except in summer heat; it took the Swedes some years to figure out NA climates). We eventually replaced it with a 145, another great car.
OK, I’ll bite by asking what is it with the Japanese and the side view mirrors way out front on the fenders that I have seen. Have always wondered given that, to me, it is a prime location for getting ripped off the car.
It was mandated by law for many years. Presumably they thought it was safer by reducing the blind spot.
This type of mirror mounting was also common in Europe on the PV444/544 and the Duett (see the white Duett with Swedish registration in the third to last image)..
My understanding is that Japanese law at the time required the outside mirrors to be visible through the front windshield to deal with as Paul notes blind spots. Many taxis in Japan still have these mirrors as well as door mounted ones.
The law actually mandated that the side view mirrors must be viewable through wiper-cleared glass. Before the law was relaxed Toyota added tiny wipers on the front doors on at least one model just to have door mounted side view mirrors
Thanks for the clarification. And now that you mentioned it I recall hearing about that Toyota.
Having had a B-18 544 for a few years in the early 1970’s, I’m understandably enamoured. There are sensory memories that still kick in of what the car felt and sounded like. The interior shot puts me back into early summer mornings, heading off to a surveying job along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. 45 minutes of two-lane coastal highway was a great way to start the day. 🙂
As reliable as Volvos were, they still rusted. Mine was a 1965, bought second-hand in 1969 with 50 000 miles on it and an already spotty rear fender. Three years and 30 000 miles later there were holes in fenders and rocker panels, and a weakening floor. Other than a clutch linkage problem however (repaired at a gas station in Quebec, with a short piece of steel rod and a welding torch) it never let me down mechanically.
I have owned several Volvo 544’s.
I went to work in a Volvo dealership after Highschool. When I was in Vietnam, doing courier duty in the embassy district, there was a pristine Volvo PV 544 doing taxi cab duty. After the service I found a very original 1961 544 that I drove for some years. I now have a 1964 that I have modified and plan to have in the Portland Oregon roadster show.
Good stuff T87, but really my biggest observation is (in France at least) what great value the DS was. 19% more than a Vauxhall Victor or Singer Gazelle? No contest – find that 10%!