Welcome to travel in time with Volvo Cars. Here you find stories about the events that made Volvo Cars history.
Lightweight materials, alternative fuels, extremely low fuel consumption – key words for the car of today. Yet, these were the very properties that formed the basis for the LCP 2000, Light Component Project. This was a concept car study aimed at the future and the environment, presented by Volvo Car Corporation in the late spring of 1983, 30 years ago.
On May 5 2013, it is 20 years since Volvo’s single best-selling model, the 240 series, went out of production. Almost 2.9 million cars were made during the 19 years the 240 was produced; the car that first was criticized for its boring and boxy appearance, but during its lifetime managed to set the international standard for both safety and environment , win the European Touring Car Championship and achieve the status of yuppie cult car before it was discontinued in May 1993.
The Volvo safety vehicle VESC – Volvo Experimental Safety Car – has played a major role in creating Volvo's safety image and it is now forty years since it was first shown. VESC was Volvo's contribution to a safety debate that was going on at the time and that had been initiated by the US Department of Transportation, DOT.
Shortly after ten o'clock in the morning of April 14 1927 – 85 years ago – the first series-produced Volvo car rolled out of the Lundby factory in Gothenburg. Behind the wheel was sales manager Hilmer Johansson who now had the major responsibility of selling the planned thousand units of this first series of Volvo cars.
"A new Volvo Estate car. An exclusive estate car, designed for European conditions enters the Swedish market. It will be shown for the first time at the Stockholm Motor Show. It is Volvo’s much longed for Amazon estate."
After presenting its first front-wheel drive Volvo model – the 480 – in 1985, Volvo Cars continued its comprehensive product and production-technology transition with its next project, launched on June 11, 1991: the Volvo 850 GLT. The car with four world-firsts – one at the front, one at the rear and two in the middle.
When the Volvo Amazon was presented in late summer 1956, most people were convinced that the PV with its already rather old-fashioned styling wasn’t going to survive that much longer. However, the PV with its loyal customer base and healthy sales figures both in Sweden and overseas experienced something of a second wind. On August 25, 1958, Volvo unveiled a thoroughly reworked PV model named the 544.
A vehicle reliable and durable enough to offer first class service for many years. Affordable to buy and cheap to run, safe to travel in, easy and practical to use. This sums up some of the requirements that those who serve our society usually look for when scanning the market for suitable transportation. And this they found in the products of a relatively new Swedish company already in 1928.
On the 14th of April, a large door opens at a factory on the island of Hisingen, Gothenburg. Out rolls the first-ever production Volvo. An open tourer with a four-cylinder engine, its model name is ÖV4.
It has been rolling for more than 90 years now, and keeps on rolling; the name VOLVO which first appeared in June 1915 on a ball bearing. The name was officially registered on June 22, 1915 after a slight administrative mishap, and was henceforth stamped on the side of the outer race on SKF's new ball and roller bearings designed for automotive use.