Volvo Cars celebrates its birth year as 1927, the year the first Volvo, the ÖV4, was produced, and, for the first years was primarily a truck and bus manufacturer before the introduction of the PV444 in 1944. The PV444 and PV544 would make Volvo known for cars, too, and the P1800 would too, especially, introduced in 1961. The Volvo 200 series, meanwhile, introduced in 1974, would make the brand an icon, especially in America, where Volvos were first sold by a dealer in California in 1955.
Volvo came to be known over the years for an emphasis on safety, built on its heritage of safety innovations, like perfecting the three-point seatbelt in 1959, and then not patenting it and giving it to the world for free. Volvos have never been particularly stylish, per se, but have developed a hard-won reputation for sturdiness and, in recent years, premium quality, too, especially with Volvo interiors. Like Mazda, Volvo might never be considered true luxury, but Volvo hasn’t minded, as any visit to the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden, will reveal. Volvo’s carved out a niche for itself among automakers that has stood the test of time.
Today, Volvo sells 10 different models in the American market, from full-electric models like the C40 Recharge, EX30, EX90, and XC40 Recharge, to SUVs including the XC60 and XC90, sedans including the S60 and S90, and station wagons including the V60 and V90. Volvo produced over 709,000 cars last year worldwide and has also opened a sprawling new production facility in South Carolina for EVs that broke ground in 2015 and is 2.3 million square feet. Volvo will celebrate its 100th anniversary in a few years and seems well-positioned for further success, which was not a guarantee as recently as the global economic crisis in 2008. What follows are ten interesting facts about Volvo you might not know.
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The Volvo ÖV4 was its first production model
Image Credit: Volvo ÖV4 meant open wagen and four passengers, and it had a frame made of wood. It only came in one color, a dark blue, and was also known as “Jakob.” The ÖV4 was built in Stockholm and the last surviving ÖV4 can still be seen at the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg. The ÖV4 had a four-cylinder engine that was said to produce 28 horsepower, though in Sweden’s climate, the lack of roof was a problem. A sister model called the PV4 that was covered was introduced not long after.
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The PV 4’s rear seat could be converted to a bed
As seen here, the covered PV 4 was an aspiring overlander before overlanders, with tires fitted for the snow and a rear seat that could be converted to lie horizontally, in case one needed a rest along the side of the road or after a long day of motoring. PV stood for Personvagnar, or person wagon, and was a designation used for Volvo passenger cars for decades after the PV 4. The PV 4 had a top speed of 55 mph and a more comfortable cruising speed of 37 mph. The frame was assembled with wood using the Weymann principle, an early production method that ensured wood components didn’t touch. Flexible joints also made for a quieter, smoother ride, though cars built as such were vulnerable in a crash and to rot.
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The Volvo PV 444 is credited with establishing Volvo’s passenger car future
Image Credit: Volvo The PV 444 was introduced in September 1944 in Stockholm in the later stages of World War II, intended to be an affordable, small car for eventual peacetime in Europe. The PV 444 was priced at 4,800 Swedish krona, or the same price that the ÖV4 had been in 1927. It became wildly popular, with almost 200,000 PV 444s produced over more than a decade. One innovation on the PV 444 was a laminated windshield, which was safer in the event of a crash.
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The last PV model was the PV 544, built in 1965
Image Credit: Volvo Volvo made at least 9 different PV models, from the first in 1927 to the last, which came off the production line in Gothenburg in 1965 and was the 440,000th Volvo PV built. It was a black PV 544 Sport with a red interior. The exterior styling of the PV 544 was already considered dated at the time, with a 20-year-old design. The last PV, like the ÖV4, sits in the Volvo Museum. The PV 544 succeeded the PV 444 in 1958, and was equipped with four-cylinder engines whose output varied from 60 brake horsepower up to 90 brake horsepower. The PV 544 also had an optional four-speed manual gearbox.
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The 1800 was Volvo’s first popular sports car
Image Credit: Volvo The Volvo 1800, or P1800, wasn’t the first sporty Volvo — the troubled Volvo P1900, or Volvo Sport, was first produced in 1956 in part inspired by Chevy’s new Corvette — but the P1800 was Volvo’s first popular sports car, with nearly 50,000 produced before production ended in 1973. Roger Moore, who was later James Bond, drove a P1800 on the British TV series The Saint, helping to make it famous. The P1800 also made 100 brake horsepower. With new safety regulations for 1974 in the U.S., however, Volvo pulled the plug. The regulations, Volvo says on its website, “would quite simply have been too expensive to comply with.”
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The last Volvo 1800 helped inspire future Volvos
Image Credit: Volvo The last 1800 was the 1800ES, an estate version of the sports car with lots of glass and room in the back for golf or hunting equipment. Around 8,000 1800ES examples were made in the last two years of production, according to Volvo, but the oversized rear window would persist in some newer Volvo models for decades afterward. The top speed was 115 mph, and an electrical overdrive reduced engine noise during long drives on the highway. Volvo 1800ES examples are still in demand today, with a pristine 1800ES recently selling for $70,000 on the website Bring A Trailer.
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The Volvo 200 series took Volvo to a new level
Image Credit: Volvo The Volvo 200 series was first introduced in August 1974 with the 240 series, which eventually came in two-door, four-door, and station wagon versions. Some 2.8 million 200 series cars were produced in total of nearly 20 years in production, with four- and six-cylinder engines producing up to 155 horsepower. Safety was among the 200 series’ biggest selling points, with crumple zones in the front and rear, modeled after the Volvo VESC, an experimental safety car produced in 1972. Volvo says the 200 series “almost became a classic in its own lifetime,” and it certainly did after production ended in 1993, with many staying on the roads for decades.
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The Volvo VESC was a fascinating experiment
Image Credit: Volvo The VESC, or Volvo Experimental Safety Car, was first shown in Geneva in 1972 and included many safety features that, at the time, were extraordinary. Those included: semi-passive seat belts, which fastened automatically after the engine started; wipers for the headlights; a steering wheel that retracted 150 millimeters in the event of a collision; airbags for the driver and front and rear passengers; rear windshield wipers; and an integrated roll cage, among many other features that trickled into new cars in the succeeding years and were ahead of regulations. The VESC can be seen at the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg.
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The Volvo 850 was the first production car in the world to offer side-impact airbags
Image Credit: Volvo The Volvo 850 was introduced in 1991 and built until 1996 and was notable for a few reasons, one of which was that it was the first production car in the world to offer side-impact airbags. Those came in 1994. Another reason is that the Volvo 850 T5-R, introduced that same year, made 240 horsepower, the most powerful Volvo ever made at the time. A third reason is that a station wagon version of the 850 competed in the British Touring Car Championship. That car was said to have aerodynamic advantages owing to its estate shape. A fourth reason is that Volvo hyped the car at the time as having “four world-beating breakthroughs,” which were improvements with the engine, suspension, side-impact protection, and seat belts. Exactly 716,903 850s were produced.
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Volvo’s first SUV was the XC90 and it was launched in Detroit
Image Credit: Volvo Volvo launched the XC90, its first SUV, at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2002, a type of car that customers had been asking for Volvo for some time then, and well before the SUV craze of the ’10s and continuing to the present day. Sales began in 2003 and before the first car was sold 15,000 orders were already on the books. The XC90 was marketed as having a new anti-roll system and protections; seat belts in every seat also had tensioners. After almost 12 years in production, Volvo made 636,143 first-generation XC90s before making way for a second generation XC90 in 2014.
