Peter Horbury RIP

[David]

Not sure whether it was already mentioned on here but Volvo designer Peter Horbury died recently. I believe he was responsible for designing the 480's interior as well as deciding the Volvo grille should go under the bonnet. A very innovative and influential designer.

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/volvo- ... y-has-died

[WillC9303]

The grille was the work of Steve Harper, but yes, the interior was the work of Horbury. It is sad he has gone so early - the 480 interior is well designed and a lot of thought went into it. Only let down by the poor assembly quality. We can blame the Dutch for that though

[David]

The grille was the work of Steve Harper, but yes, the interior was the work of Horbury. It is sad he has gone so early - the 480 interior is well designed and a lot of thought went into it. Only let down by the poor assembly quality. We can blame the Dutch for that though

I would agree with you there. It is a very innovative interior design, especially the split rear seats in the back. Just let down by that Dutch build quality!

[dragonflyjewels]

Very sad news about Peter Horbury.

A few corrections:

Not sure whether it was already mentioned on here but Volvo designer Peter Horbury died recently. I believe he was responsible for designing the 480's interior as well as deciding the Volvo grille should go under the bonnet.

A direct quote from Rob Koch, (Product Design Manager at the time) states that he was the one who decided the grill should go below the bumper.

Only let down by the poor assembly quality. We can blame the Dutch for that though

The build quality had more to do with Volvo desperately trying to make the 480 cheap enough for the American market. The exchange rate was going the wrong way, and the American 'throw away' attitude means they won't pay extra for quality. According to our body shop man, even Mustangs are poorly built compared to 480s. He absolutely hates trying to get everything properly aligned on them as they simply aren't built well enough.

[David]

Very sad news about Peter Horbury.

A few corrections:

Not sure whether it was already mentioned on here but Volvo designer Peter Horbury died recently. I believe he was responsible for designing the 480's interior as well as deciding the Volvo grille should go under the bonnet.

A direct quote from Rob Koch, (Product Design Manager at the time) states that he was the one who decided the grill should go below the bumper.

Only let down by the poor assembly quality. We can blame the Dutch for that though

The build quality had more to do with Volvo desperately trying to make the 480 cheap enough for the American market. The exchange rate was going the wrong way, and the American 'throw away' attitude means they won't pay extra for quality. According to our body shop man, even Mustangs are poorly built compared to 480s. He absolutely hates trying to get everything properly aligned on them as they simply aren't built well enough.

Were the 440 and 460 earmarked for the US too? Their build quality was equally as shoddy. As much as we might love them the Dutch built Volvos really damaged Volvos reputation for making reliable cars.

[dragonflyjewels]

Yes, all of the 4 series was aimed at America. Under American regulations, the range had to achieve an average mpg and the 480 was the one that brought the average down low enough. It was nicknamed the mpg car.
As the 480 was their first front wheel drive, Volvo wanted it to be as innovative as possible so the designers were encouraged to explore all their new ideas for it. Unfortunately, this meant that it really should have had an extra year of development but that just wasn't econmicaly possible, hence it went into production before all the problems had been properly resolved.

Most of this information is from Eric Vanaubel's book, which I English language edited. Needless to say I had to read it many times in the process. It was based on interviews with a lot of the Volvo employees involved, including Rob Koch and John de Vries, as well as a large archive of documentation. Copies are very limited as it was a private publication at Eric's personal expense. I believe he has a list of people interested in a second print run, but he needs to order 100 copies at a time in order to keep the price down.

Eric can be contacted on ericvanaubeldesign@gmail.com

[WillC9303]

It could be worse- the early Volvo 343s had build quality so utterly abysmal that they were all recalled by Volvo and crushed. Customers of those cars were then offered a newer 340 replacement free of charge.

There’s an interesting video on YouTube comparing all 3 generations of the 340 and the early ones have the interior build quality you’d expect of a one-off prototype. I’ve never seen anything so flimsy and poorly made as that…

[Jay-Kay-Em]

One of my YouTube channels "Big Car" did an S80 video....

https://youtu.be/Ix7DEWY25sw

Following on from that, they had a Peter Horbury interview on the sister channel "Little Car" :

https://youtu.be/ebTs3X1SU-Q

Only two weeks later he passed away. Very sad.

[David]

One of my YouTube channels "Big Car" did an S80 video....

https://youtu.be/Ix7DEWY25sw

Following on from that, they had a Peter Horbury interview on the sister channel "Little Car" :

https://youtu.be/ebTs3X1SU-Q

Only two weeks later he passed away. Very sad.

Thanks for posting those links. I particularly enjoyed the Little Car interview. It was funny hearing Peter talk about his frustration when reading reviews of new Volvos even today which refer to the traditional image of Volvos as boxy estates driven by antique dealers when Volvo hasn't made cars like that in thirty years. He was a very interesting interviewee who clearly had a true appreciation of scandinavian design.