1965 Volvo 544 Special

Looking great - fantastic work there...

Just had to google what a 544 looked like! ;D



Your English is brilliant and the car will look gorgeous!

Rysz.

Wow! Great amount of work going on here! Love these cars.

You look to be doing an excellent job

I really like PV544's. Such a cool shape

Brilliant work so far, look forward to seeing it finished!

Thanks for the positive comments!

Yeah, the 240 rearend is narrow enough. It is a snug fit, but it goes. Those 7" wheels with an ET about 20 is the deepest and widest I can use without widening the fenders. The 140 rearend is actually wider, because the 240 are using wider wheels in the same arches, Volvo had to use a narrower rearend on that one.

Grizz, yeah, they were more successful when raced that one may believe. It may look old and slow... But the handling were amazing for a 1940s family sedan, the dry weight are under 1000 kgs, and at least the later B18 engines wasn't very hard to soup up, even if the more modern Volvo redblocks (that I'm going to use) have an even greater potential.

seriously impressive work there my friend! looks like youve done most of the hardwork!

That's fantastic!! Looking seriously good now, and so different from when you first started. Excellent skills

Good idea Grizz.

A little story about the automobile itself...

Volvo was founded in 1927. They did not have any high production volumes back then. The cars that was made was very american both in their size, appearance and construction, which may have been a good idea back then, since the american cars sold well in Sweden back in the 1920s and 30s.

Volvo saw that after world war 2, there would probably be a demand for a smaller, more economical car, for the people more than for services like taxi and such, that was more of the average Volvo buyer before that. The answer was the PV 444. "PV" stands for "Personvagn", the swedish word for an automobile made for transporting people (the Volvo trucks back then had the name "LV" for "Lastvagn", swedish for "truck", as well as the buses had the name "B" and the tractors the name "T"), 444 stood for 4 passengers, 40 hp and 4 cylinders.

The looks were still quite american, but with a wheelbase of 102,3 inches, it was smaller. Also, as the first unibody construction made by Volvo, the construction differed from both early Volvos and the american cars made back then. To get ideas how to make the unibody, Volvo had a look at a 1939 Hanomag. Combined with the egg-shaped bodyshell, rounded corners in all the openings, thick sheetmetal and small gaps between the spot welds, the 444 actually had a very strong and stiff bodyshell, which may have been a contribution to the success in rally and racing.

The engine was a 40 hp, 1,4 litre OHV four-banger, called B4B. Actually, mostly a copy of the Opel engines made back then. Through a 3-speed manual gearbox with a 30s style floor shifter (a shifter type which would be used by Volvo until the early seventies, when it looked very ancient compared to the short remote shift levers used in almost any other car by then), the power was transmitted to the rear wheels. The suspensions were modern at the time, coil springs all around, and independent front suspension with kingpins. Hydraulic drum brakes all around. A modern, but still conventional, construction, that with its rugged construction, high ground clearance and large 16 inch wheels was well suited to the rough swedish road and weather conditions.

The first cars were presented in 1944, but due to problems getting materials during ww2, the production started in 1947. The plans was to make about 8000 PV444s. There would be many more...

As the PV became a success, small modifications were done all the time. In 1949, a separate chassis with front sheetmetal and mechanics from the PV444 joined the lineup. They called it the 445. In 1953, Volvo made their own van body for the 445 chassis, and called that car the "Duett". Wider 15" wheels, small changes of the trim, grille, lights and interior,the engine tuned to first 44 and then 52 hp, larger front and rear windows, that was what happened to the PV444 through the ages. In 1957, the Volvo Amazon/120-series joined the Volvo lineup, with an enlarged 60 or 85 hp engine called the B16. The 1957 444 also got that engine, but most people thought that the Amazon would replace the 444.

Instead, they updated the 444 in 1958, and renamed it the 544. Now it had a wraparound windscreen for improved sight, instead of the split window on the 444, and also a much larger rear window. The backseat got new armrests so it would now take three passengers instead of two. The taillights were enlarged for greater visibility in bad weather conditions. Inside, a new, padded dashboard inspired by the Amazon was installed, as were a new two-spoke steering wheel instead of the old banjo type. The handbrake now had a lever between the front seats instead of an umbrella lever under the dash. With those modifications the 544 continued to sell very well, even though it was quite aged at the time. A couple of years later, even the 445/Duett got those improvements and was renamed the "210", as the Amazon wagon, named "220" was going to be released. Actually, Volvo was starting to use a computerized system back then, so the 544 actually got the name "110" in their internal system, even though it was never called that officially.

In 1962, the 544 got the new B18 engine, available in both single and double-carb form. The single carb had an output of 68 horsepowers, while the dual carb engine had 90 hp, which made a real sprinter out of the small and light 544.

In 1965, the 544 got a small facelift, where the trim and wheels were modified to harmony with the facelift on the Amazon. But it did not get the ortopedically shaped seats or the disc brakes from the Amazon. Volvo said that there was technically troublesome (which is BS, because Amazon disc brakes are almost bolt on), but that was not the truth. Later that year, it became known that the 544 was going to cease production in the autumn of 1965. All in all, 440 000 444s and 544s were made.

The Duett van continued to be produced though, and were still very popular. Few cars on the market had that combination of reliability and ruggedness, load space and economy. But in the horizon, there was new rules coming up, that required things like dual circuit brakes, collapsible steering columns, rear seat belts (yeah, most of the Duetts had a rear seat, though foldable) and such. It would be too expensive to modify the Duett to comply with all the rules, and Volvo let the last Duett roll off the assembly line in 1969. By that time, the model series were almost 25 years old, still, it was missed by many people. An epoch had ended. Volvo tried to replace the Duett with a model called Volvo Express, which was a 145 estate with a raised roof, but that was a failure.

The 1965 Volvo 544 was available in the following trim levels:
Favorit, a bread and butter model. Available in black, white and grey.
Special, that had opening rear side windows, bright window trim, side trim on the fenders, and a four speed gearbox. Available in white, grey, light blue and dark blue.
Sport, that had the extra equipment from the special and the dual carburetor engine. Available in cherry red, white, light blue, dark blue and grey.

There were 440 000 444s and 544s made. Mine is # 434277, quite a late one sold in the summer of '65. 5 owners before me, and all of them from this town.

Nice work Volvo-man, and impressive background information. I'll keep this topic in close attention.