Gunnar Anderson, flying a PV towards victory in the 1958 Midnight Sun Rally.

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Though Volvo PVs began entering world class rallies in 1949 (Monte Carlo's first post war rally) 1958 was the first year that the Volvo PVs won the European Rally Championship. Volvo and Gunnar Anderson began an impressive run in '58, starting with the Monte Carlo where PVs won their class finishing 4th overall and collecting the Charles Faroux team trophy. Anderson then managed a third place finish in the Acropolis Rally and led the (Dutch) Tulip Rally for a time before being overtaken by another PV which won. Next up was the Midnight Sun Rally in which he won the overall! Anderson again won the overall title in the Adriatic Rally in (the then) Yugoslavia. The season ended with the Viking Rally, a second place for Anderson and another win for Volvo in the hands of Norwegian Hans Ingier.

A continent away Volvo PVs took the top three places in the "Little LeMans" endurance race at Lime Rock Ct. (Volvo had taken the top 5 places in '57). As an interesting side note,Walter Cronkite raced a Volvo PV at Lime Rock during this time period, I don't know how he did though. On July 4th 1958 A Volvo PV also won the Continental Touring class at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in the hands of Bill Rutan! During the late 50s and early 60s The PV was the nemesis of the Porsches, MGs and Healeys of the day across America in SCCA racing with several overall wins, sometimes against much larger displacement competition!

Of course, Volvo was only too happy to utilize these victories in its famous- "Its a Family/Sports car" -series of advertisements!

These cars all ran the B16 engine and in some cases the H6 3 speed transmission!

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