International Product Development

IPD (International Product Development) or IPD USA, is an automotive aftermarket company that manufactures and sells Genuine, OE, OEM, and IPD branded high-performance upgrade components for Volvo brand automobiles. The company is based in Portland, Oregon. IPD was started in 1963, by two friends, (Richard Gordon and Garry Small), who worked at an import car dealer. The business was originally called Import Parts and Service. Due to business issues around purchasing parts wholesale, the partners divided the business between service and parts. Garry Small lead the service portion under the name Import Service Center and Richard Gordon lead the parts area under Import Parts Distributing. A small collection of race-worthy components followed and Richard put together a catalog to capitalize on product uniqueness.The first catalog was 10 pages long and assembled from typewritten pages, Polaroid pictures and some clip-art.
The business was primarily locally focused until 1971 when Road & Track magazine did an article on performance products for imported cars. IPD was mentioned and national marketing began. Then in 1974 Road & Track in their June issue did a comparison test between the IPD project car and one from Volvo of America. Since that time IPD truly has been a national business. Continued growth lead to international business and in 1996 the dba of International Product Development was added.
In 2005, IPD opened a new division called WPD (Worldwide Parts Distribution) to focus on parts for other vehicles aside from Volvo such as Subaru, Saab, Volkswagen, Porche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Honda, Mazda and Nissan.
2006 SEMA concepts (2006)
*The IPD C30 includes a supercharged 5-cylinder engine with belt-driven supercharger with of boost, a nitrous tank, gull wing doors, and Alcantara seats, Alpine and Apple audio system.
IPD offers Volvo OES, aftermarket brands and Genuine Volvo.
IPD is known for its anti-sway bar upgrades over the OEM version. Autocar gave IPD a "far superior" rating compared to the OEM version.

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