The Dutch designer behind a series of striking shooting brakes has turned his attention to the Volvo P1800 ES, and it might be his most controversial move yet. Niels van Roij, via his company Autoforma, and in partnership with specialist Volvo Lotte, has created a restomod P1800 in a crazy color scheme that’s far removed from Volvo’s traditional Scandinavian style.
“We said, okay, if we name it Forward Fashonista, we should also make an example that is maybe a bit more provocative, something that maybe not everybody likes,” explains van Roij.
Forward Fashionista is the most extreme of three design directions for the restomod, which has been named Norrsken (Swedish for Northern Light). In this guise, the P1800 receives a host of mechanical upgrades to complement its smoothed, carbon-fiber-enhanced wide-body styling. Under the hood sits a T5 five-cylinder turbo motor and transmission, plus there’s reworked chassis geometry and more powerful brakes.
If that’s a little extreme, Autoforma also offers a Modern Marvel version with subtle updates, including current LED lighting, more sophisticated suspension, and a power bump, while maintaining the car’s original styling. For even more conservative connoisseurs, there’s Heritage Heaven, which is really just a renovation using period-correct materials and colors, plus a few mechanical changes to focus on improving reliability and day-to-day driving, while maintaining the classic car experience.
By offering three different options, van Roij hopes to appeal to “a diverse group” of Volvo enthusiasts. Even the Forward Fashionista, with its high-performance turbo motor, is very much aimed to be a usable road car, rather than competing with the racy Cyan Racing P1800, for example.
“It’s not a race car for the road. It’s a road car for the road,” says van Roij. “This is really a driver’s car, for ordinary circumstances, whether it’s a mountain road or daily driving, that’s what is key to us.”
To that end, van Roij has redesigned the P1800’s interior with updated instruments, new seats, door panels, center console, and a revised luggage area, as well as offering discreetly packaged audio and climate control systems.
van Roij aims to build no more than five cars per year, and they’ll be priced from around €300,000 (about $360K as of this writing). He estimates the first example will take around 18 months to build, with future cars cutting the assembly time to six months or so.
van Roij plans to launch an online configurator, but until then, you can browse the gallery below to visualize this gorgeous Volvo in its different guises.
Report by Nik Berg
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