File:Volvo 444 -Marreco- (1947) (49214483473).jpg

Lisbon, Portugal

HISTORY

The car that introduced Americans to Volvo – and the one that many joked looked like a 1940s Ford run through the dryer – is soon to celebrate its 70th birthday: the PV444.

This two-door was first shown on September 1, 1944, in Stockholm’s Royal Tennis Hall, where the Volvo Group exhibited products ranging from a tank and hole grinding machines to their two new cars, the larger body-on-frame PV60 four-door and a non-running prototype of the compact PV444.

World War II was still in full swing as Sweden’s largest industrial firm hosted this event, but the idea was for the then-18-year-old Volvo to show the range of its capabilities, and what everyone could look forward to, when peace resumed. This was attended by Swedish royalty and the public alike.

While the PV60 – intended to have premiered in 1940, but halted with the advent of hostilities – was a distinctly prewar design, the PV444 was all-new, with unit-body construction and a clean-sheet small-displacement, overhead-valve engine. Its name was derived from the fact that it was a four-seater with four cylinders and 40 hp.

As Volvo Cars Heritage explains, “When the PV444 was unveiled in September 1944, work to develop the model had only been going on for a couple of years. Around 40 designers were working on developing the new car. A full scale wooden model was built and painted black, with silver paint denoting where there were meant to be windows. It was completed in March 1944 and shown to Volvo’s founders Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson. After having looked at the car for a short time, both gentlemen took a decision that would affect Volvo’s entire future as a car manufacturer – the car would be built.”

The new small car was very well received, and 2,300 orders were placed, although it wouldn’t be until well after WWII ended that this model would be delivered. The first production example was built in February 1947.

The first run of 444s were all painted black over a green interior, and they were powered by the 40-hp, single Carter-carbureted 1,414-cc B4B engine.

Volvo Cars Heritage continues: “When the PV60 and PV444 were presented, Volvo’s exports were modest. [Volvo’s in-house-published owners magazine] Ratten said the cars would ‘make the public here in Sweden happy, and even to some extent abroad, once peace is reinstated.’ But it was with the PV444 that Volvo would establish its historically most-important export market: the USA. On 15 August 1955, the first trial delivery of PV444s arrived in Los Angeles. The year after, Volvo had made its way to second place among the import brands in California.” The PV444 would undergo minor but important styling and mechanical changes in its 11-year lifespan, which ran through model year 1958.

Physical alterations included a larger, one-piece rear window and different treatments for the grille, bumpers and turn signals, including the September 1950-August 1952 use of the infamous “Cuckoo on the roof,” the roof-mounted Fixlight 1180. The B4B was replaced in 1955 by the twin-SU-carbureted 70hp B14A, which was in turn replaced in 1957 by the single Zenith-carbureted 66-hp, 1,582-cc B16A.

Traditional body-on-frame Volvos had for decades been bodied for special purposes, from ambulances and hearses to luxury transport, but the PV444’s monocoque construction would have spelled the end to this practice; rather than give up on that market, Volvo developed a full-frame version called the PV445, which became the underpinning for the much-loved Duett station wagon/utility vehicle (production began in 1953) and rarely seen sports models like the early-1950s Valbo Convertible.

Volvo’s original goal for PV444 construction was a 8,000 units, which seems modest until you learn that they’d never before built more than 2,000 examples of any model; their typically Swedish modesty paid dividends when that figure was blown out of the water. Tough, durable and surprisingly sporty to drive, the car quickly established a stellar reputation in international competition like rallying (including the famous Monte Carlo) and racing, and 196,005 units were built.

The 444 would live on in further-modified form as the PV544, which was built through October 1965: between the 444 and 544, exactly 440,000 were built and sold around the world.