Behind the Wheel of Cyan’s Turbocharged, 450-HP Volvo P1800

Templar, Simon Templar. Nope—it doesn't have the same ring as 007. Yet, somehow, Roger Moore managed to make both characters ooze cool. Granted, Connery got the better end of the car deal with Bond's Aston Martin DB5, but Moore still scored with a submarine-ing Lotus Esprit, and with the Volvo P1800 he drove as Templar in the television show The Saint.

Cut to 2022. We open on a Cerulean Blue P1800 streaking through morning's first light. It's a far cry from the original car that Moore would have driven, but Cyan Racing has reimagined the Swedish classic as something that Simon Templar would surely have been excited to drive. Building customer cars to support a racing habit remains a long-standing tradition in the automotive industry. The team at Cyan Racing, established in 1996 and responsible for starting Volvo's Polestar racing program, is located at the easy-to-find but harder-to-pronounce intersection of Gammagatan and Frölundagata in a southern suburb of Gothenburg, Sweden. Your $700,000 purchase of their first fundraising effort, the Volvo P1800 Cyan, will help.

Inspired by the likes of Singer, Gunther Werks, and even Shelby American, Cyan looked no further than their own backyard when it came to picking the right car. Designers originally voted for the company to start with the Volvo 140, with its clean lines, but the more iconic P1800 won out.

Turn the key over and Cyan's P1800 starts up with confidence, the modern Volvo four cylinder grumbling in a low tenor and the whir of its turbo adding a high pitch to the melody. From the engine note alone, this P1800 hints that its driving experience might be a bit sportier than the original 2+2, front-engine, RWD touring car did in its time.

This particular model is a show car, something to sell their idea via various and sundry automotive journalists such as myself. It straddles the line between track animal and road-loving GT. Put in your order, and you can push it as far as you like, though according to Hans Baath, General Manager of Cars for Cyan, this is as far as customers will likely go. "Any more and it would be too bumpy on the road and not fun to drive," Baath said. Owners will likely want to keep the driving experience in the fat part of the fun curve.

The camber isn't so aggressive here, only 1.6-degrees, and with its 18-inch center-lock wheels wrapped in Mercedes-spec Pirellis—245s up front and 265s in the rear—you can push it quite far without fear of losing the rear end. Don't want the rollcage? No problem. Want to tone down the exhaust noise? That's fine, too.

"Most people change gears too early," Baath said, and I definitely did right out of the gate, so I sheepishly downshifted the metal dogleg six-speed shifter to third gear and let her rip across the wide turns of Angeles Crest Highway, just 24 miles from Los Angeles. There's plenty of room to play as the engine redlines at 7,700 rpms.

"The P1800 came at the same time as the Cobra and the 911, and then you would have thought, 'that's a cool car.' But when it came to power and handling, it really was not," Baath says. The original P1800 only made 130 hp at its most powerful.

With my foot on the floor, even third wasn't enough for the Cyan's 420 horses to show off, because the 425 lb-ft of torque doesn't come in early on the rev band as with most modern turbos. Rather, it's mapped like a naturally aspirated engine, and delivers torque linearly, meaning the more you push the pedal, the more power you get, just like a '60s car. "If you don't give a race driver torque linearly, they hate you," Baath says. At only 2,100 pounds, that 420 number makes for a potent power-to-weight ratio, which all gets stopped effectively by AP Racing brakes.

"Think of this as the '60s perfected—no ABS, no power brakes, no traction control," Baath explains. Cyan juiced the steering wheel with a smidge of power assist, and it's just enough to get the front end to respond quickly without making you feel as though you're working so hard for it. The back end dutifully follows suit thanks to help from those sticky Pirellis. Coming up to another turn, I bungle my gear selection and Baath laughs. "I do that too, yes," he commiserates in his Swedish-accented English, "That's the dogleg problem. Sometimes it's like, where am I?" However, even with my driver error, this P1800 doles out godlike forgiveness. We were having such a good time driving and talking that we got lost in the streets of Wrightwood at the end of the Crest. GPS didn't work here, so we retraced our steps. "It's not half-assed. This is fully assed" a fellow journalist said of his P1800 experience. I couldn't have agreed more as I kept driving.

Lest you think they are destroying mint-condition classics, Baath assured me that he and his pals source bodies from salvage cars that are far beyond rescue and mostly rusted out (because Sweden). Originally, there were 49,000 P1800s made between 1961 and 1973, when production ended. There is so little Cyan keeps from the original body that they can use the saddest examples out there, so there is no need to feel bad.

According to Baath, torsional rigidity of the original chassis was more or less zero, so they use all-new stronger steel to stiffen up the frame. Everything in blue is carbon fiber. The body is super stiff, so the suspension has to be tough enough to handle it, hence replacing the original live rear axle with a double-wishbone setup. In all, Cyan replaces more than 70 percent of the original car. They reinforce the weld points in 30 places where the carbon fiber body adheres directly to the frame and upgrade the engine mounts. Six carbon panels cover the chassis in total, and I challenge you to find a seam anywhere. All the chrome bits are milled billet aluminum, from the exterior trim pieces to the interior finishes. So, what's still original? The hand brake that sits on the left side of the driver's seat, the hood latch, the switchgear for the limited HVAC controls, and the windshield wipers.

The direct-injection inline four-cylinder turbo is the same as you'd get in a Volvo you'd buy today, an engine Volvo started making in 2014. Cyan started developing it with Volvo in 2010, so they know their way around it and can tune it however you and your $700,000 would like. To better resemble the original car, Cyan tucks the turbo underneath the block and removes the variable cams for that linear torque.

"PAAAAA!" That's the noise Baath makes when I get it up to redline. The gears are long and the shifts smooth. This car feels perfectly angelic on a road with wide, sweeping turns. This isn't a car you put into one gear and drive. Rather, you row through second, third, and fourth liberally to feel the chassis composing itself.

There is no one size here; everything is customizable, from the brake balance bar, to camber and caster, to anti-roll bars, spring rates, and shocks. It can be set up for anything from hardcore racing to getting ice cream on the weekends. Materials in the interior can accommodate any taste as well. If customers have any taste at all, they'll choose the recycled charcoal-grey felt Cyan used on this show car. The toggle switches are machined metal and feel solid in your hands, just like a '60s car.

Visibility is not as bad as in many modern cars, but of course you have no safety features of which to speak, so driver beware. Thankfully numbers are universal, because the gauges are all in Swedish unless the customer asks for them otherwise.

When I ask what's next, Baath pauses. "A lot of customers want the ES (shooting brake)," he says. The C30 is another one they want, which would make sense for Cyan since it was the first Polestar car they ever made with Volvo. For Baath, it would be the 240 turbo, but the market will ultimately dictate what, if anything, comes next. Currently, there are five customer P1800 Cyans in the works, and this heavenly Volvo superstar will do quite nicely for now, thank you very much. Hallelujah.

Join host Mike Musto to see how something wonderful happens when you combine passion and drive with old-fashioned work ethic and family values. Meet Northern Bel, the 1966 Plymouth Belvedere that was conceived by owner David Meyer and brought to life by coachbuilder Troy Trepanier. About as tastefully done as one can get, this old Plymouth packs a 526 cubic inch Hemi, twin rear-mounted turbochargers and enough power to launch it to the moon if you placed it vertically. Sign up for a free trial to MotorTrend+ and start streaming every episode of The House of Muscle today!