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THE BIRTH OF VOLVO
Volvo was born on April 14th, 1927, when the first car, which was nicknamed "Jakob", left the factory in Gothenburg. The adventure had begun some years before, however . . . The 1920s was the decade when the car made a real breakthrough,both in the USA and in Europe. In Sweden, people's interest in cars was seriously aroused in 1923 as the result of a jubilee exhibition in Gothenburg attended by 97 car exhibitors. At the beginning of the 1920s imports to Sweden totalled some 12,000 cars a year, but after 1925 this figure rose to around 14,500 cars a year. On the international market it was quite common for car manufacturers to find components in industrial catalogues, purchase them and then assemble a car. The quality which resulted from this procedure was not particularly high and many of these makes quickly disappeared. Quality, however, was of paramount importance to the men who founded Volvo. The basic idea was that they should design and draw the components for the car themselves, select the suppliers to produce these parts according to their specifications and then do the assembly work with the aid of experienced car builders. This basic concept, which was formulated back in 1926, still applies to Volvo's way of making cars.
THE MEN BEHIND VOLVO
Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson were the two men behind Volvo. Gabrielsson was a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a businessman and began his career at SKF in Gothenburg. 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 could. One of the reasons for this was the low workshop wages in Sweden compared with those paid internationally. It seems likely that it was here in France that Gabrielsson began to wonder whether Sweden might not be a suitable place to produce cars. 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, among other things. 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 Gothen-burg for three years before returning to Stockholm. So, Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson had several opportunities to meet through their mutual employer. Perhaps it was at this time that the two of them started to develop the idea of Swedish car manufacture.
THE SUMMER IT ALL STARTED
In the summer of 1924 Gabrielsson and Larson began seriously to discuss their plans for producing cars. They came to a verbal agreement in August and a start had already been made on the design work by September. Larson, who did the design work alongside his normal job, gathered together a team of young engineers at bis home in Stockholm. In July of 1926 the first chassis drawings were complete. It was Gabrielsson's job to find the money for the project, but bis attempts failed and they realised that it would probably be easier if they had some test vehicles to show prospective financiers. They therefore decided to produce a test series of ten vehicles, nine open and one covered. The first test vehicles were produced in nine months and this time Gabrielsson succeeded in obtaining the financial support.
THE NAME BECAME VOLVO
Once there was something concrete to be seen, SKF became interested. The company had been somewhat cautious to begin with, but it now 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". So the preliminary work and the development period was over and 1927, when the first series-manufactured cars made their appearance, is officially recognised as the year in which Volvo started operations.
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