Caresto is a company run by a gentleman called Leif Tufvesson who delights in restoring old classic cars and building hot rods. He worked for Volvo for a while as a technician in their Volvo Concept Center before moving to a sports car manufacturer in Sweden called Koenigsegg Automotive AB for six years, working on new developments. Since 1966, though, he has put all his efforts into his own company.

Back in 2011, to celebrate Volvo's 80th anniversary, he decided to build a hot rod based on the 1927 Volvo OV4 (open carriage, four cylinders) which was nicknamed the Jakob and which was the first mass produced car (they built nearly 1000) that Volvo created.

Apart from the fact it was a hot rod (!) the car was as near to the original OV4 as possible, even down to using typical 1920s tools to form the bodywork. The wheels and tyres of course are right up-to-date but the wheel design is a modern copy of the original wooden ones, albeit using alloy instead of wood.

The chassis also is somewhat different from the original; Tufvesson had it built out of carbon fibre which was not the most common material in the 1920s! The radiator grille pattern was very similar however, albeit somewhat wider and there are two seats rather than four.

Original Volvo parts have been used where possible, including a modified 2.5 litre T5 Turbo engine burning ethanol and pushing out 265 brake horsepower.

Tufvesson took the car on a tour of Europe and the USA during which he won several Hot Rod awards. Volvo were delighted and gave the car pride of place for a while in their Gothenburg Museum.

Somehow the vision of a typical safe but boring Volvo, driven by a middle-aged male wearing a hat and driving at 10 mph below the legal speed limit in the middle of the road, will never be the same again.