Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, drenched in what you hope is sweat, with one burning thought booming around your brain: was there ever a “jolly” version of the Plymouth Volaré? And, if so, did that jolly variant of a Plymouth Volaré have a subscale go-kart variant? These are important questions, dammit.
In this one very specific case, I’m happy to report that I have answers for you. And I just realized you may have more questions; I’m sure you don’t need any explanation of Plymouth Volarés, of course, seeing as how those cars are the very bedrock upon which our culture is built.
You know this is true because these cars have a song, a powerful, emotion-slathered song, all their own:
Wow. Take a moment to just breathe. Let that really sink in.
Okay, now, I realize some of you may not be familiar with the concept of a “jolly” when it comes to cars. If so, I’m happy to explain: a jolly is a version of a car designed for transport of visitors to an from resorts. Since these were resort cars, they tended to operate in tropical climates, and as such had reduced bodywork, with removed doors and roofs, the roof either open or often replaced with a simple, fringed “surrey top.” The best known of these jollys (jollies?) are likely the Fiat 500 and 600 Jollys:
Fun stuff, right? Well, if you had to pick a car least likely to be made into a Jolly, I think it would be entirely reasonable to pick a Plymouth Volaré Wagon:
And yet, somehow, there was one made. A Volaré Jolly was built! Look:
Who is that in there? And why? Hey, hey, calm down, we’re getting to that! In the Volaré Jolly is none other than Ricardo Montalban, the man who introduced the world to rich Corinthian leather:
Montalban was a man who clearly liked to keep busy, because in addition to informing the world about the intense, decadent luxury of the Chrysler Cordoba and its seats, clad in the finest hides of Corinth, he was also the man (or perhaps some ethereal being)a in charge of an island, going by the name Mr.Roarke, a magical, barely-comprehensible island where, I’m told, one’s fantasies came true, perhaps via liberal application of hallucinogens or maybe a pact with some colony of djinn. No one really knows.
The dark secrets of the island were piped into American homes from 1977 to 1984, and early on they used Jolly-ized Jeeps:
But Jeeps just don’t have that fantasy quality that a Volaré has, so in later seasons we were treated to the Volaré Jolly, a 1978 model that featured removed doors, blanked-out hinge and striker plates, and, of course a surrey top.
It’s implied that there are multiple Volaré courtesy cars on the island, but I’m not certain how true that was. I suspect the production company made multiple ones, though.
There was definitely one variant of the Volaré, made just for Tattoo, and scaled appropriately:
I’m pretty sure this has to be the only go-kart version of a Volaré ever built, right?
Want to watch a whole episode that not just includes some cameos of the Volaré and the Devil himself? Of course you don’t. But too bad!
Readers: please consider: “craptacular” instead of “craptastic” …
The Volare wagon was one of the better-looking cars of that era. IMHO. But not the jolly version.
I swear at the 7:40 mark in that video you can see the entire car flex when Montalban stomps on the brakes.
I miss shows like Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. Silly fun with the revolving cast of guest stars! You never knew who would turn up. TV was so much better before reality shows were invented, and soap operas stuck to daytime TV.
The office for my previous job was on the waterfront in Portland, ME. Whenever there was a cruise ship in, the whole office would break out in a rousing rendition of the Love Boat theme song. 😉 Love, exciting and new – come aboard, we’re expecting you!
Volares are horrible no matter what you do to them.
And the occasional guest star episodes of CHiPs, and battle of the network stars, etc … stuff you can do when audiences aren’t so hyper -segmented
Last time I was aboard a Princess ship, they showed a documentary about Gavin MacLeod’s career, including his time on “The Love Boat”
He and others described the care the recurring cast and crew took to make the guest stars feel appreciated and welcome on set – as many of them hadn’t had an acting job in years.
They definitely dredged up plenty of “moldy oldies” for the show! I often had no clue who they were, but my mother or grandmother did.
I think Mr MacLeod played one of the bad guys on Hogan’s Heroes! May explain why he had to be a civilian sea cap’n after the war instead of the Navy? 🙂
The accent mark on “Volaré” is, methinks, incorréct.
Similar to Beyoncé
That’s just there to keep people from saying Voltaire.
Stupid autocorrect
Some hipster band needs to re-do the Volare song with Voltaire related lyrics!
I was already in my 20s when this show first aired, and life was getting busy, so I didn’t watch it much. Regarding the schlock and “it’s so bad it’s good” factor, reading this article and watching a couple clips, I got this weird Epstein vibe about the island.
Last week I finally re-watched Citizen Kane after many years. Holy crap, not only does the current squatter in the White House revere and emulate Charles Foster Kane, he even has Tattoo as his sidekick!
It is NOT the only go-kart version of a Volare. I’ve seen a few of these on the internet over the years.
https://www.mecum.com/lots/259129/1977-plymouth-volare-road-runner/
I’m guessing you don’t know that the Dean Martin song preceded the car by about 20 years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mppAFu3dqw
And it’s pretty clear why the production company stopped using Jeeps:
Herve clearly hated being picked up to be pulled out of the Jeep.
Whereas he could just step out of the Volare like a normal person….
I never considered the humiliation that Herve had with the Jeeps… I would have hated that, too!
I’m glad they changed it.