1970 Volvo 145
China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which took its first tentative steps onto the world automotive stage in 2005, is currently dotting the i's and crossing the t's on a $1.8-billion U.S. deal to buy Volvo from Ford.
They will slide behind the wheel of the prestigious but un-profitable Swedish auto maker after only a decade of auto making. Not bad for a company created in the mid-1980s to make refrigerators.
Acquiring Volvo will give Geely not only an entree to world automotive society's upper strata, but also access to some of the most current automotive technology available.
Volvo has a long history of focusing on safety, making seatbelts standard in 1959
And although almost a century separates events there are a couple of tenuous similarities between this unlikely pair. Volvo, like Geely, was late getting into the car-making game, in a country that didn't have its own auto industry. Volvo based its first designs on foreign (American) technology and only slowly evolved into a globally recognized brand.
The Volvo story begins in the early 1920s, when Sweden was importing only some 12,000 cars a year, but into an increasingly enthusiastic market. Assar Gabrielsson, a business type and Gustaf Larson a techy type were working for bearing manufacturer SKF and talking themselves into the idea of getting into the car business.
By 1926 Larson and his team had a design ready to go and Gabrielsson, with some difficulty, finally talked his bosses at SKF into providing financing and factory space. SKF also provided the name Volvo, which in Latin means "I roll" a leftover from a previous project.
The first Volvo, nicknamed "Jacob" rolled out of the Hisingen factory Gothenburg early in 1927. It had an open five-seat body (the PV4 with enclosed bodywork was also offered) and was based on American automotive design practice with a sturdy chassis, with leaf sprung, live axles front, 20-inch tall wooden spoked "artillery" wheels and a 28-horsepower, four-cylinder engine that gave it a top speed of 90 km/h. Just 297 were sold in its first year.
In 1928 the Volvo Special, an extended and more streamlined version was available, and Volvo began building its first trucks, which along with buses would account for much of its production volume in its first couple of decades.
By the following year Volvo was hitting its stride on the car side and introduced the six-cylinder engined PV651 saloon (PV, incidentally, stands for PersonVagn, Swedish for car) which also proved a popular taxi. Total production in 1929 was 1,383 units.
Larger and more elaborate versions of the PV650 series were produced in the early 1930s, which competed against Chevrolets built at a plant in Stockholm and a wide range of imports. A major departure from the four-square design theme that had carried over from the 20s occurred in 1935 when Volvo introduced its also American industry inspired, "streamlined" and pretty pricey, PV36 sedan.
Only 500 Cariocas (as the PV36 was nicknamed for some reason) were built while Volvo introduced a less expensive model called the PV51 that shared its styling and much of its mechanicals. Variations on the PV51 theme carried Volvo through the rest of the decade.
A PV60 replacement was planned for 1941, but World War Two put this project largely on hold, although some prototypes were completed over the next couple of years. Development work was also undertaken on a small car, the PV444, for post-war introduction.
The PV444 was introduced in Stockholm in 1944 and people lined up to sign contracts to purchase the cars. They had a long wait though, as the first PV444s weren't delivered until 1947. Volvo was also selling the PV60 sedan, taxi versions, vans and trucks.
In the early 1950s Volvo offered updated PV444s including the Duett, a station wagon or panel van. In 1954 it stepped out of character to unveil plans for a two-seater, the Volvo Sport or P1900, which was introduced in 1955. That Volvo sold just 67 units was proof that a sports car was out of character for the company. But 1955 was a better year for Volvo in other ways, including its entry into the North American market with the PV444. It also scored a world first by making seatbelts standard in 1959.
A car more suited to North America, the Volvo 120 which is known in Scandinavian countries as the Amazon, was introduced in 1956, a handsomely more conventional design. An update on the old but still much loved PV444 called the PV544 arrived in 1958.
One of the still readily recognized Volvo models of this era is the P1800 sports car which was introduced for 1961 and went on to co-star with Roger Moore in the television program "The Saint."
The first of the Volvo models to espouse the "boxy" bodywork that became a trademark look for decades to follow was the 144 launched in 1965 and promptly named Sweden's car of the year. It proved popular too in export markets, including Canada and the U.S. and was later available in wagon form. New generation 240 and 260 models followed in the mid-70s along with a small car, the 66, based on a Dutch DAF that didn't make it across the Atlantic.
By the 1980s, Volvo's growing reputation for safety was joined by one for performance with the advent of the turbocharged 240 Turbo, and an all-new 700 series appeared in 1982 that became a familiar site on North American roads. They were followed by the 940/960, the 850, the S40/V40 compacts and the V70 XC (cross country) wagon of the 1990s.
Volvo AB sold its car division to Ford in 1999, but the acquisition never paid the expected dividends, in monetary terms at least, and the American company had been shopping it around for some time until Geely stepped into the frame. Hopefully Geely, which means "lucky" in Chinese, will fare better.
Volvo has a long history of focusing on safety, making seatbelts standard in 1959