Of course you know of the round air cleaners that adorns your SU carburetors on your Volvo, they are almost a trademark.
When researching original equipment on my 1961 P1800 with chassis number #423 I was surprised to see that Volvo used square air cleaners on the first 1,109 P1800 cars.
A mad dash thru old literature and Swedish rabbit holes was commenced and behold, they did start out with square air cleaners.
Check out this artist rendering that is supposed to make us excited about the P1800 drivetrain. Here you can see the square air cleaners. B-18 nerds may also note the two bladed fan, it was never used on the P1800. Looks like a B-16 fan to me. I can assure you, the stock 165/15 tires were never that wide but hey…wide looks cool. The look like the old “Wide Oval” bias ply muscle car tires.
This is an image from the original owners manual of a 1961 P1800. Here you can see that the square air cleaners and that they were made by AC. Yes, trust me, I went right to AC’s website to see if I could find them. Obviously not!
Turns out that the vibrations from the engine cracked the metal on the air cleaners so Volvo went to the round type. The round air cleaners we use today also have more intake area for that SU howl we love so much!
Speaking of early equipment, the very early P1800 did indeed use a different fan than later cars. It used the X shaped fan on the right. I am still researching when they changed to the modern style seen on the left.
By Rolf Åström