It's nothing new for a boutique automotive tuning shop to take a timeless classic car or truck and transform it with new hardware into something profoundly different and arguably better than what it was to begin with. But of all the classics out there to get this treatment, your E-Type Jaguars, C2 Corvettes, and such, would you include the classic Volvo P1800 in that list? If you don't, Cyan Racing in Gothenburg, Sweden, wants a word with you.
This is a project called the Cyan GT, and it's essentially the same timeless classic P1800 we know and love, with several new layers of refinement and modern hardware under the skin. As you might have already deduced, Cyan Racing's bread and butter is taking Volvo cars of all shapes, sizes, and eras and turning them into chisel-jawed performance machines. Whether it's track-focused circuit monsters or low-slung GT cars you're after, Cyan racing satisfies the itch that many Volvo fans have a hard time scratching on occasion.
From the looks of things, the Cyan GT could be the company's greatest creation yet. Even from an introductory glance of what Cyan Racing's gotten up to, it's blatantly obvious what sits before us is far removed from what the car was to begin with. The P1800 was always a grand touring car first and a sports car second. With one of two Volvo B-series, four-cylinder engines under the hood, and a layout optimized for cruising rather than canyon carving, it's no wonder this icon of late 60s and early 70s Swedish culture translates so beautifully over to modern hardware.
Gone is whichever B-series Volvo four-pot that came with this P1800. In its place is a two-liter, turbocharged, four-cylinder racing engine derived from the iconic Volvo S60 TC1 race car of mid-to-late 2010s fame. In its World Rally Championship configuration, this engine was good for 400 horsepower to the tires. In this road-tuned getup, chances are good this engine's making just a little bit less than that power figure, roughly between 345 to 414 horsepower or so official sources indicate. That's more than enough for a vehicle which, when new, only weighed around 2,500 lbs. Power is fed from the engine to a five-speed manual transmission from Hollinger, and a carbon fiber driveshaft runs underneath the length of the vehicle.
Staying true to the classic P1800's grand touring vibes, Cyan Racing didn't bother fitting track-focused braking and suspension hardware into their creation. Instead, its fully independent suspension is set up for a softer, more grand tourer-friendly geometry that isn't so rough over potholes and speed bumps that it compresses your spine passing over one at 40 mph. With a tasteful leather interior with cloth accents highlighted by classic-looking switches and dials, there's a strange chimera of new and old materials making up the interior of this boutique GT car.
Photo: Cyan Racing
In leather colors like black, tan and even a delightful shade of dark green with an impressive selection of exterior paint colors, each Cyan GT can be tailor-made to suit the tastes and preferences of each driver. Special Cyan Racing decals adorn the sides of each Cyan GT, just to let you know what's passing you on the left-hand side is not an ordinary Volvo P1800. Then again, the flashy dark alloy rims fitted to the Cyan GT are a pretty big indicator of what lurks under the skin of these rides. Both inside and out, there's no mistaking the level of quality put into every nut and bolt of this restomod.
"The new version highlights the versatility and almost endless tailoring options of the Volvo P1800 Cyan, adding another dimension to our interpretation of the original model," said Cyan's head of development, Christian Dahl, the maestro behind what might be the coolest restomod to come out of Sweden this decade. "The joint journey of tailoring a car from start to finish with a client is a thoroughly rewarding process for the entire team, just as it is to see two further cars being shipped to the US." That's right, folks, even the Americans will be able to enjoy the Cyan GT pretty soon.
No word on what a creation like this would cost to buy, as each vehicle is its own bespoke labor of love. But what we can say is each Cyan GT takes between 12 and 15 months just to get running and driving. All that labor must add up to a pretty penny when that service bill finally comes due. But hey, we can only assume it's totally worth it. In so many ways, the Cyan GT takes the very essence of what made the P1800 an all-time great Swedish grand tourer and amplifies it to levels that Gran Turismo junkie "zillenials" can appreciate without coming off as old-fashioned in front of their equally judgy and eager-to-insult group of friends.
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