Volvo Amazon

Volvo Amazon at a glance

Development and production history

Jan Wilsgaard designed the car. His styling was influenced by a Kaiser he saw in Gothenburg harbour, and English Wikipedia notes that it resembles American cars of the early 1950s. At launch the name was spelled "Amason". The German motorcycle maker Kreidler had already registered "Amazone", so Volvo could use the name only in Sweden. Elsewhere the cars were sold as the 121 or 122, and internally the series was called the 120.

The four-door saloon came first, and Volvo built it until 1967. In 1962 Volvo added the two-door saloon (130 series) and the estate (220 series), and the same year the 1,778 cc B18 engine replaced the original B16 in the more powerful versions. In 1964 production started at the new Torslanda plant next to the original Lundby factory in Gothenburg, and the Borg-Warner automatic became available. The 123GT followed in 1967 with a high-compression B18 from the P1800, and in 1969 the B18 was enlarged to the 1,986 cc B20.

With the arrival of its successor, the 140 series, the Amazon was phased out: the four-door ended in 1967, the estate in 1969, and in 1970 only the two-door remained. The last Swedish Amazon left the line on 3 July 1970. The very last car, number 359918, came from Durban, South Africa, on 18 December 1970.

Safety: the seat-belt pioneer

The Amazon is remembered above all for its seat belts. In 1959 Volvo made front seat belts standard on every Amazon, including export models, which English Wikipedia describes as a first for a car manufacturer. The Amazon later became the first series-production car with three-point front seat belts as standard equipment. Volvo's later safety work is part of our history of Volvo.

Design and engineering

The Amazon rides on a 2,590 mm wheelbase. The saloons are 4,395–4,450 mm long and the estate 4,490 mm; all are 1,620 mm wide and 1,505 mm high, and kerb weight is about 1,100 kg.

Engines and gearboxes

The same B18 and B20 engine family powered the Volvo P1800 sports car, which was built on Amazon mechanicals. Our power converter gives the bhp figures in kW and PS.

Volvo Amazon specifications

Variants and production

English Wikipedia's notes also give 234,209 four-door saloons and 73,196 estates; the main figures are used here. Two-door cars made up 54% of all Amazons although they arrived six years after the four-door, and the estate, built for only seven years, accounted for 11%.

The Amazon in numbers

Spread over the fifteen calendar years from 1956 to 1970, the 667,791 cars correspond to an average of about 44,500 a year. With about 60% exported, roughly 400,000 Amazons were sold outside Sweden. The step from the single-carburettor B16 of the 121 to the twin-carburettor B18 of the 122S raised power from 49 to 63 kW, or by about 29%.

With a kerb weight of about 1,100 kg, the 122S had about 17 kg per kilowatt against about 22 kg for the 121. The P1800 sports car used the same engine family, but Volvo built only 47,492 of them. The Amazon outsold it about fourteen times over. Our power-to-weight calculator compares these ratios with any other car.

Assembly around the world

Besides Lundby and Torslanda in Gothenburg, the Amazon was assembled at Ghent in Belgium, Halifax in Canada, Arica in Chile and Durban in South Africa. Volvo exported about 60% of all cars. The Durban plant built the last car of all, in December 1970, five months after Swedish production had ended.

Legacy

The Amazon links Volvo's early post-war cars with its modern reputation. It was the car on which front seat belts became standard on every car in 1959, the first series-production car with three-point front belts as standard, and the basis for the P1800's mechanicals. Its long life also shows how Volvo developed a design step by step. Over fifteen years the company offered three engines, five manual gearboxes and an automatic, with the same three body styles from 1962 onwards. The two-door 130 series, introduced last, outlived the others and was the version that ended production in 1970.

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