Yahoo Autos Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 First Drive: The Swedish answer to Singer Porsche
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Cyan Racing unless you’re a fan of World Touring Car Championship racing. Its previous name might ring a bell, however: Polestar Racing. Before the performance road car side of its business was sold to Volvo, and therefore long before that business was in turn spun off into an electric car brand, Polestar developed and campaigned racecars. Now known as Cyan Racing, it has had quite the run of success, too, as they’re the reigning champions in the WTCC series with five titles so far. Somehow, they found the time to create something entirely different: the Volvo P1800 Cyan.
As the name implies, it’s based on the P1800 coupe that was produced from 1961 through 1973. Readers of a certain age will associate that car with Roger Moore as The Saint, before he became James Bond. The P1800 has always been an anomaly in the Volvo lineage. Its classic shape came from the Frua/Ghia studio in Italy and even though it never had sports car credentials, the P1800 had a small but loyal following. So loyal that a P1800S holds a Guinness World Record for the 3.25 million miles driven by its original owner.
Despite the P1800 Cyan’s undeniable similarity to the original Volvo coupe, it’s an entirely different beast. The only items that remain from the original 1964 donor vehicle are its steel chassis, hood release, handbrake, and windshield wipers. High-strength steel has replaced much of the substructure and the body has been reimagined in carbon fiber.
Under the hood is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder sourced from the Volvo S60 TC1 race car. It produces a surprising 420 horsepower and 336 pound-feet of torque at 6,000 rpm. Bolted to the block is a five-speed Holinger manual transmission that sends power to the rear wheels. The original P1800’s live axle is replaced by an independent rear with front and rear double-wishbone suspensions being fully adjustable. The 18-inch custom wheels are shod with Pirelli P Zero rubber: 235 widths up front and 265s in the rear. This all results in a featherlight 2,180-pound curb weight. Let’s just say that again for effect: 2,180 lbs. That’s lighter than a Miata, folks.
At this point, the P1800 Cyan is already unreasonably cool, but wait, there’s so much more. Hans Baath, general manager for Cyan Racing proudly admits that Singer Vehicle Designs is a huge inspiration for this project, and if you’ve ever seen a Singer Porsche in person, you probably have an idea of what’s next.
The attention to detail is best described as fanatical or obsessive. The bodywork is perfect enough that you’d never guess it was carbon fiber and all of the glass is custom made. Then there’s all of that delicious chrome trim. There are no waves or dimples in any of those trim elements because they’re made from billet aluminum, including the huge D-shaped side window surround. Just imagine how big and thick that metal panel was before that surround was carved from it. The same holds true for the door handles, bumpers, mirrors and light surrounds. To our knowledge, only Pagani goes to these extremes.
The engine bay gets the same treatment, starting with the hood that’s louvered on the passenger side only, to draw heat away from the turbocharger. That turbo is tucked neatly under the interlocked knuckle of exhaust headers, rather than garishly prominent. A row of three fluid reservoirs are lined up with obsessive perfection and the hard lines are bent to perfectly conform to the firewall and inner fenders. Even the adjustable ratio steering is assisted electronically rather than hydraulically in order to clean up the front of the engine.
Then there’s the interior. With the satisfying kind of click you’d get from a Zippo lighter, the door handle button gently but definitively releases the latch to reveal a beautifully finished door jamb. You have to shimmy over the roll cage’s oblique door bar, which is titanium underneath a leather wrapping, because of course it is. The deep Recaro racing buckets are very snug, but as reassuring as what you’d imagine a bear hug from Mario Andretti would feel like. The five-point Momo belts give you that final bit of theater, though they are restrictive by design (you’ll want to close the door before you strap in because you might not be able to reach it later).
