Volvo Valp
Photos by Ned Faux Words by Ben Laughton
Traffic jams. The scourge of modern motoring or a rare moment of quiet contemplation away from the distractions of life? Well, in the case of my good friend Demian Sjöberg, the influence for his next project came during a five-hour commute home from work, while stuck in a traffic jam behind a Volvo Valp. The result? One of the most complex and best executed “Bug pan” builds that we’ve ever seen here at Hayburner.
For those who aren’t familiar with Volvo’s early off-road offering, the Valp (also known as the Laplander) came about when the Swedish military placed an order with them for a new all-terrain vehicle during the 1950s. By 1959 Volvo were producing various prototypes, and by 1962 when the Volvo L3314 finally went into production, it had already earned the nickname “Valp”, which translates as “Puppy”, due to its short stance and stocky body. Roughly 1000 military and civilian Valps were built before production stopped in 1970, although demand then led to over 3000 further “facelifted” versions being produced from 1977 until 1981.
The particular vehicle that Demian was stuck behind on that fateful journey brought back old memories of a local plumber using a Valp in Demian’s village when he was young. He’d often thought about buying a Valp in his younger years, but the yearning had passed as he got deeper in to the air-cooled scene. In this traffic jam, though, his thoughts turned back to the Valp and the possibility of fitting one to a Bug pan. From where he was sat it looked like it might just work, and nobody had done one before so it would definitely be a little different. By the time he got home he had his plan made. Source a cheap Valp, find a cheap Beetle pan, buy some beer, get some mates round, smash a budget Bug pan build out over a couple of weeks, and trailer it to a show. When he mentioned this plan to his friend Johan, he rustled up a quick Photoshop of a slammed Valp which only served to whet Demian’s appetite further and to lead him deeper down the rabbit hole of Volvo’s 1960s utilitarian offering. When he mentioned it to his friend Lorry, it turned out that a contact had a 1962 body for sale for just £150. A phone call later and the plan had become reality, although nothing ever turns out to be quite that simple.
A rusty ’67 Bug pan was sourced from Demian’s mate Arthur, which turned out to be about 300mm longer than was required for the Valp body so this needed shortening. Demian then built his own Karmann Ghia-style floor pans to combine a dose of Volkswagen heritage with the right styling to suit the Volvo. He then decided that the sensible way to get the desired zero-camber rear wheels was to drop the body over the pan and run the Beetle chassis at stock height, which would take considerably more work than just slamming the pan. A lot of well-thought-out trimming and space-framing was involved in getting the Volvo body safely and securely where he wanted it to sit. The steering needed figuring out so that the steering wheel could remain in its original Volvo position, ahead of the front axle. This task alone took him and his friend Franke over 100 hours to figure out using an ingenious mix of Beetle and Bay parts. A new custom front floor was fabricated, as were a new custom gas pedal, handbrake and gear stick. In fact, only the original Volvo brake pedal and hydraulic clutch were retained from the original vehicle. Any thoughts of a two-week build were a distant memory as the Valp ate up precious time supposedly allocated to his many other projects.
Two years in, and with a crazy amount of time and energy invested in the bespoke chassis, Demian came to the realisation that the tired old body was no longer going to cut the mustard on this build. The body had started life with a removable hard top which had been badly welded in place by a previous owner, the rear doors were homemade, and the thing was rusty and dented and not at all what this project now demanded. Timing is everything and, after fruitlessly searching for Valp parts since this project started, an entire body happened to pop up for sale just 45 minutes from his house. It was in far better condition, but was the later facelift version that Demian hadn’t wanted and so he ended up backdating the front panel and the entire dash before he was happy with the shell.
Further body mods followed in spades. Spare Valp front louvre plates were sourced and used to the rear of the side panels to allow airflow to the engine bay. The steps under the cargo doors, superfluous now with the lowered ride height, became air intakes for the oil cooler and engine. The rear tailgate was modified to reposition the side-mounted hinges to the top to look a little more VW, and to shorten the panel itself considerably to allow an early Bay engine lid to be grafted into the resulting space. Then ’58–’61 rear bus lights were added to continue the Volkswagen theme. The list goes on and on. Less obvious modifications include Mk1 Golf rear coilovers mounted up front, and American snowmobile gas coilovers out back, to allow for the considerable extra weight of the Volvo body. The gas tank is from a Type3, and the seats are Datsun 240Z up front and Type25 Double Cab in the rear.
The engine caused considerable headaches when the 2.5L Type4 motor with Porsche fan used as a guide for the bodywork build turned out to be more compact than the Type1 motor actually intended for the Volvo. The Type1 fan shroud was too tall, the carb too high, and the new engine bay too narrow for twin carbs, and so for the purposes of the three inspections required to MOT and register the vehicle in Sweden, a tired and leaky Type1 motor was employed with a single carb and no air filter.
Finally, eight years after that fateful commute, the Valp was road legal, but Demian was still unhappy with it. The engine needed changing out, and he wasn’t happy with the wheels or the bumpers. All this effort to build a car that he now didn’t actually like, and so out came the welder and grinder again. The wheels are currently 17” BRMs with 175/65/17 and 225/65/17 meats because 15s didn’t come close to filling the enormous Valp wheel arches, and even the original 17” tyres purchased were eventually deemed too small. To solve the eternal “arch gap” problem, Demian ended up fabbing up smaller arches in the style of the originals. A pressed rear Splitscreen pickup bumper was mounted to the rear of the van. The front bumper was fabricated to include a spring-loaded lower section that can move up and down if and when it hits the road, although this in turn led to a modification to extend the front panel down and add a front spoiler just to get things aesthetically correct to meet Demian’s exacting standards.
It had for some time been the aim to drive the Valp the 1700 miles to LeBug Show 2025 at the Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, but by the summer and with one week left to finish all the final details it really felt like Demian might fall at the final hurdle. Oh, and he was working 11-hour days so the one remaining week was really just some short and tiring evenings to complete a car that didn’t even have a decent motor. This became the first job, and a reliable little 1600 was pinched from Demian’s Barndoor and fitted to the Valp along with further modification of the engine bay and fabrication and installation of all the custom cooling tins, which left no time for the final paint blending. Thankfully his friends Goran and Leif, who were planning to accompany Demian on his mammoth test drive to Belgium, stepped in with two days to go and knocked the paint out of the park. Demian refers to Leif as the “Swedish Patina Blender” and says that he knew the bus was in great hands with those guys on board.
And so, by Sunday afternoon, with the three friends all exhausted, the Volvo was finally ready! Ready as in home-built, heavily modified and untested. With a custom chassis, home-fabricated mechanics and a scratch-built engine bay and cooling setup – what could possibly go wrong? Well, it turns out nothing did. After nine years and over 2000 hours of work, the Valp made its way safely and uneventfully all the way to Spa where it received a rapturous welcome. Demian says that as they travelled on the small, winding roads along the Mosel River in Germany on Day 3 of the four-day drive, he even managed to start relaxing and enjoying the journey despite his and Leif’s initial concerns about the task at hand.
Not his first rodeo by any means but definitely his biggest, the number of heads that were turned by the Valp during that show weekend are testament to the fact that Demian should be super proud of this build. I for one was so happy to see my three friends at Spa and know that, against all the odds, despite all of their worries, and after a superhuman effort on Demian’s part, they’d made it. What a journey, what an adventure, and what a project. Fair play that man. And to think, it all started with a traffic jam …
