Volvo taking Sir Roger Moore's Volvo 1800 S to Techno-Classica

Sir Roger Moore and his Volvo 1800 S from The Saint

Volvo are going to this year’s Techno-Classica Classic Car Show armed with Roger Moore’s Volvo 1800 S from The Saint, Håkan Samuelsson own 1800 and more.

Volvo are now a very cool, Premium car company, having shaken off its chattering-class, brown furniture-lugging, safe but a bit boring image as it delivers a raft of new – and seemingly ever better – cars.

But Volvo’s prior reputation for solid, square estates and saloons did hide one very cool car in its midst – the Volvo P1800.

Never a particularly sporty car, the P1800 was, however, cool even in its day, and made more so when Leslie Charteris’ The Saint hit TV screens in the mid-1960s, with Roger Moore – en route from Ivanhoe to James Bond – in the title role. And the Saint drove a white Volvo 1800 S.

The car ‘Mr One Eyebrow Acting’ drove in the TV series was his own 1800 S, complete with a few extras like a big fan to keep occupants cool during filming, Mini-Lite wheels with truncated spoke design, Hella Fogs and a wooden steering wheel.

It sported the iconic ‘ST 1’ number plate, although under the filming froth it was actually NUV 748E – and still is.

Moore kept the car through the Saint’s run, and ended up selling it to fellow actor Martin Benson (he played Mr Solo in Goldfinger), and it finally ended up in Volvo’s own classic car collection a couple of years ago.

Now it’s heading for the Techno-Classic Classic Car Show this month, alongside Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson very own 1800 (pictured below), along with more 1800s including a 1966 1800 Volvoville convertible and a 1968 1800 ES prototype by Pietro Frua.

If you’re in Germany later this month you can catch up on Volvo’s P1800 past at Volvo Cars Heritage stand at Techno-Classica Essen from 21-25 March.