Volvo's first truck had 28 horsepower and could carry 1.5 tonnes. Today's largest Volvo is the most powerful production truck in the world with its 660 hp engine capable of hauling 200 tonnes.
Between them lie 80 years of dedicated work by generations of enthusiastic Volvo employees. All of whom were driven by the same strong feeling of belonging and the same concern for quality and safety that the company's two founders originally planted in Volvo from the very start.
Economist Assar Gabrielsson was just 33 years old when he became sales manager of Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF). However, he wanted something different - he had his heart set on building cars. Then, cheer chance in 1924 he met a former colleague, Gustaf Larson, an engineer widely acclaimed for his technical expertise and a man who shared the very same dream.
The drawings for Volvo's first truck - the Series 1 - were already complete when the company's first passenger car left the factory on 14th April 1927, with the first truck introduced in February 1928.
The wheel is perhaps Man's most important invention and now Volvo - which means "I roll" in Latin - had taken over the wheel !
The Volvo spirit
Larson and Gabrielsson knew that Swedish iron was of better quality than iron from anywhere else. Accordingly, their 'Swedish car' would be better than imported cars. That's exactly the way it worked out and sales went well, especially for the company's trucks. Exports got under way back in 1928, seeing Volvo's on roads in countries as far apart as China and Argentina.
The "Volvo" name was easy to remember and pronounce in every language the world over. Trucks continued to be the most important product for Volvo through to the 1950's, when more people were able to afford cars and car production rose.
The two founders of the company worked consistently and with dedication to make Volvo a very special company. From the President all the way to the errand-boy, the company was characterised by a special enthusiasm for the work and dedication to the company - a feeling that soon came to be called 'the Volvo spirit'. Having a job at Volvo was regarded as an enviable achievement, and many, many thousands of employees the world over have proudly carried the Volvo spirit further over the past 80 years.
The importance of getting into the EC
The losses of the first years evaporated in autumn 1929 and by 1935, the company's was doing so well that SKF terminated its majority shareholding by floating Volvo on the Stockholm stock exchange.
After almost 30 years, Volvo's founders handed over the company's reins in 1956 to Gunnar Engellau. In the early 1960s, he gave his colleague Lars Malmros the task of examining the viability of establishing a presence in the embryonic EC. In this market, demand for Volvo's trucks had increased considerably at the same time as the economic union was increasingly protecting itself behind high customs and tariff barriers. In 1965 a factory was inaugurated for the production of cars, while truck production was increased in the importer's factory in Alsemberg. In 1975 truck production was relocated to a new factory alongside the car production plant in Gent, Belgium. Volvo had now gained a firm foothold in Europe and underwent considerable expansion there.
In 1970 Volvo's truck operations were separated into an independent unit within Volvo with the formation of the Volvo Truck Division, with Lars Malmros as President and CEO.