Specifications				Road Tests

Volvo Car history

Brief History of  Volvo Cars

Volvo History - Name and Symbol

Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson were the two men behind Volvo. Gabrielsson.  He began his career at SKF in Göteborg. In time, he became the head of SKF's subsidiary in France and discovered that it was possible to sell Swedish ball-bearings at a lower price than the US suppliers. In 1923 he returned to Sweden to become sales manager for SKF.

Gustaf Larson was an engineer and designer. He had worked as a trainee at White & Poppe in Coventry in England, where he was involved in the design of Morris engines. In 1917 Larson returned to Sweden and took a degree at the University of Technology in Stockholm. He then worked as an engineer at SKF in Göteborg for three years before returning to Stockholm.

In the summer of 1924 Gabrielsson and Larson began seriously to discuss plans for producing cars. They came to a verbal agreement in August and started design work by September. In 1925, Penta (a marine engine manufacturer) received its first order from their newly started car enterprise on Hisingen outside Gothenburg started by Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson. Volvo was born on April 14th, 1927, when the first car, which was nicknamed "Jakob", left the factory in Göteborg.

Once there was something to be seen, SKF became interested. It then provided guarantees and credit for an initial series of 1,000 vehicles, 500 open and 500 covered. SKF also provided the factory premises and the name, AB Volvo, which had been used in a previous business operation. Volvo is Latin and means "I roll". The Volvo circle-and-arrow trademark was created to represent strength, taking its graphic shape from the traditional alchemist's symbol for iron ore.

In the 1920 circa, before the birth of Volvo Company, car makers built cars by choosing ready-made parts from catalog and then assembling into cars. The results were of poor quality products. Eventually many of the early car makers seized to exist. Volvo had a different philosophy: they believed quality cars could only be built from designing components n-house, contracting the designs to be built by manufacturers and finally assembling the parts by experienced car builders. And that, the desire to build quality cars, was the driving force behind Volvo. Combined with the name, the Volvo graphic identity is "rolling strength" -- an expression of its approach to building cars.

Volvo Since 1927

In 1927 the Volvo ÖV4  was the first Swedish motorcar. It utilised a four-cylinder engine and had a top speed of only 37 miles per hour.