Styling Volvo’s Classics, Past and Future

Our friend Dan Johnston has been one of the friendly faces of Volvo Cars’ Public Affairs for more than 15 years, actually having started with Volvo by working in the automaker’s Parts Operations warehouses in California while still in college in 1966, when he remembers PV544s still being executive company cars; Dan’s own first company car was a safety orange-painted 1972 145 wagon. During this impressive tenure, he’s watched Volvo grow from a little-known importer of solid, dependable Swedish cars to a highly regarded safety- and design-driven automaker whose models compete on the world stage.

Dan has used his XC60 blog to share a never-before-released video and creative images of progressive Volvo styling. He’s posted a video, shot in 1996 at the company’s Rockleigh, New Jersey HQ, that features Volvo’s head of design, Peter Horbury, doing a walk-around on the yet-unseen car that would signal a new era of styling for the previously straight edged automaker.

The expressive 1997-2002 C70 Coupe, like the 1998-2004 C70 Convertible that would follow, was developed in conjunction with England’s touring car and Formula 1 powerhouse TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) on the 850 platform, and as Peter explained, it honored Volvo’s traditional design cues in an entirely new language.

I had the honor of seeing this video when it was still in VHS form as a personal loan from Dan shortly after I purchased my own C70, one of exactly 20 Nautic Blue manual gearbox Coupes to come to the U.S. in 2000.

When I met up with Dan at the New York Auto Show this past April, we discussed Peter Horbury’s reinstatement as the head of Volvo design, replacing Steve Mattin, who held the position for the past four years while Peter acted as the executive director of Ford Americas design. It was then that Dan told me about the impromptu sketches he’d asked Peter and Steve to create around a purely hypothetical reborn PV544; ”After a few beers, they both broke under my constant pestering to have them pen a retro 544.”

One of Peter’s doodles…

And Steve’s…

Click through the above links to see high-res images and read Dan’s musings on these fantastic personal creations.

Thanks for sharing, Dan!

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Remembering Saab USA’s Bob Sinclair

We were saddened to learn this morning of the passing of Robert J. Sinclair (1931-2009), who on Sunday lost the battle he’d been fighting with cancer. He is survived by his wife Anne and their six children.

I had the great fortune and pleasure to interview Bob, as he insisted being called, for a “Profile in Excellence” piece for Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car magazine back in the spring of 2006. He lived up to his reputation for being humorous, direct and remarkably personable. In fact, he graciously sent us a surprise gift of his homemade salsa and fresh avocados picked from the trees in their Santa Barbara, California, back yard.

This note was in the package, and it has been hanging on the wall in my office since the day it arrived.

Bob remains a legend among America’s Saab faithful for the numerous ways in which he brought the cars and the company into the spotlight. He got his start with the newly formed Saab Motors, Inc. as a field representative, and by 1958, the 27-year-old was handling all of the automaker’s public relations and advertising, as well as acting as the sales manager. He left Saab when the U.S. office moved from New York City to Connecticut in 1961, and he joined Volvo, where he would work until 1978, rising to the position of vice president of marketing, sales, advertising, public relations and more.

It was a call from his former boss at Saab, Ralph Millet, that lured him back to the smaller Swedish automaker with the offer of president and CEO of Saab Cars USA, which he accepted in May of 1979. It was Bob who raised Saab’s profile by promoting the company’s turbocharging, by sponsoring Skip Barber’s open-wheel Spec Car racing series, by helping the Saab Club to host the first annual Saab Owners Convention in 1983 (the 2009 SOC will be held in Colorado) and by coming up with the idea for the Saab Convertible, which was introduced in 1986 in 900 Turbo form and quickly became Saab’s halo car.

This energetic man retired in 1991, shortly after General Motors bought 50 percent of the automaker. Far from sitting still, he continued to attend the Saab Owners Conventions, and he and Anne indulged their passion for traveling the United States with their camper, riding motorcycles and for creating gourmet meals- his ‘job,’ Anne told him, because once he retired, she’d retired from cooking dinner.

We last met up with Bob at the autumn 2007 Boston Auto Show launch of Saab’s 9-3 Turbo X and unveiling of the Heritage Collection’s 1985 Turbo SPG, and he was as jovial and happy to share his stories as ever.

You will be missed…

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