About Sven Wingquist and Gustaf Larsson

We must go back to the time when SKF was established. Sweden had in the end of 1800 and beginning of 1900 several very capable inventors and constructors. One of these was Sven Wingquist. He started his education at Örebro Technical Elementar School.
Sven made his early experience in different works shops in USA.

Sven became a technician for textile machines and got after work at Jonsered employment at Gamlestaden weaving mill. Here his first job was to solve the bearing problems. The mill had several steam engines and all of them had a shaft that went through the mill. These shafts gave power to the textile machines.
All the main bearings from the steam engines could not stand and broke down. Sven understood that because the factory was built in an area of clayey bottom, the bearing supports were changed. The Göta River was just beside the mill buildings. Soon he understood that the shafts were in necessity need of a bearing that could take angle changes.

This ended with his invention of the spherical bearing. We have now reached 1907.  The board of Gamlestaden understood the importance of this invention and established a new company for the development of the bearing. They nominated Wingquist as chairman. This company got the name SKF and was a subsidiary company of Gamlestaden.

Gustaf Larssson also went in Örebro Technical Elementar School.  Gustaf got experience in England. It might be very remarkable that these highly educated persons not emigrated to America. Compare with the Hult brothers, Ljungström an all those who came back to build Volvo company.

The bearings should be sold under the name Volvo.
Up to 1915 this name was used. The new director Björn Prytz decided that all bearings from SKF instead should be marked with the SKF logo. The name Volvo was put in desk for future use. At this time Prytz employed Assar Gabrielsson  as marketing director and placed him in France.
This was a good opportunity to learn about car production. He moved back to Gamlestaden 1921 in order to take over SKF.

Volvo (the company) was created 1926 as a subsidiary company to SKF before it 1935 became a sole company. From the beginning the name Volvo was aimed for the single bearings. This was only for the purpose of Gamlestaden. Note that Gamlestaden had only the new bearing to produce for the market 1907.

The Volvo bearing was produced for the time being in the factories of Gamlestaden.

A very small amount of bearings were stamped with the Volvo logo and delivered on the market, before decision to changed name to SKF.

The new bearing was manufactured in an old building called "The Rat House" at Horns Street in the village before a new production local was built. Later other types of bearings were incorporated in SKF from Gamlestaden. A official catalogue was not printed until 1918.

SKF had to fight for their patent.

With this important invention SKF got of course big problems with illegal production of the bearing.
 

Patent was taken in several countries, since 1907, as in Sweden. Another company was NKF, Nordic Bearing Factory, which produced bearings in a building at Hisingen Gothenburg.

This company had employed Carl Leon (Larsson). He was a man that also worked in shipping. He had offered NKF his invention to start production of a spherical bearings. NKF produced, all other types of bearings (single row) of that time. His spherical bearing was made that it just went outside Wingquist's patent. In any case it should be a long time patent fight to get rid of the production from NKF.

Wingquist wanted to be the head deliverer quickly so he offered Carl Leon at NKF 1920 a large sum of money to be paid for 20 years. See link. This stipulated that Carl Leon was not allowed to develop his bearing. NKF continued up to 1925 with their ordinary bearings while Carl Leon withdrew. What today is left as memory is the old NKF factory building and a pizza named "Captain Larsson's pizza". This can be ordered at Fjällbacka restaurant. Wingquist had also problems with several other "black" producers in other countries of the world, mainly in Germany. These problems Sven normally solved by buying the companies. In Sweden at this time there were 10 bearing producers.

Later it would show up that SKF could lower the prices of all bearings because of good selling. NKF could not follow this so they stopped their production 1925 and SKF bought their factory building at Hisingen 1925 on an executive auction.

This was good in time because Volvo needed the locals to put the new Volvo cars together. From outside one can believe that it was much "fox and geese play" behind this when it happened just in time for Volvo. The building is today called "Nordkulan" and is important in the history of Volvo.

The need for transports.
Generally it was a down period for Swedish car industry.

Thulinverken went bankruptcy 1920 and the company was sold out. Under different names the company had production during a few years. They built cars according to orders and from left over parts.

Thulin's bankruptcy depended most from the large investment which had been done because of car production. At the same time Thulin counted on a large airplane order which not appeared because end of war 1918. Another important happening was that Enoch Thulin death crash with his latest fighter 1920.
Scania including Vabis, built only luxury cars up to 1911. Vabis stopped with private cars and put money only on lorries. Later Vabis merged with Scania to Scanis-Vabis.

Now it happened that the two important persons for Volvo met and noted that they had about the same future planes. Gustaf Larsson worked some years, up to 1920 at SKF Gothenburg. He moved then to AB Galco in Stockholm. At this time many directors and alike went to restaurant Sturehof at Stureplan Stockholm to get a nice lunch. Gustaf Larsson tells us this at the funeral of Assar Gabrielsson 1962. By coincident Gustaf went to Sturehof and met Assar eating from a large dish of red crayfish.

They should have enjoyed the crayfish without any job talking. From this opportunity the tradition to invite Volvo employers for Swedish crayfish is descended. I don't think this happens today because of lack of this special Swedish crayfish.

Rolls and Royce wrote their agreement on a napkin when eating together about car production. Assar and Gustaf wrote a declaration of intention on a simple paper, which is maintained, about starting car production 1926.
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Gustaf Larsson was a farmer's son. After examined at Örebro Technical Elementary School he got job as  trainee at White & Poppe in Coventry England. Here they produced all kind of accessories for the motor and car and transport industries. After moving back to Sweden he graduated technical examination at Technical High School in Stockholm 1917. He now started to work at SKF in Gothenburg and Katrineholm. 1920 he changed over to AB Galco in Stockholm.

In what way did they start with their car idea.

After the principal declaration it was decided that Gustaf should take out drawing basis for a car. With these drawing basis Assar should sell the idea to SKF in order to get money. Gustaf who was employed at AB Galco. This company had such production that they should let them produce the test series. Anyway he had to continue with his ordinary work. Now he changed his living apartment at Rådmansgatan in the south side of Stockholm for a construction office. Here together with some selected engineers like Jan G Smith the construction drawings were made.

Today no one knows their construction principles, except simple and tested.

Probably is that Gustaf Larsson had examined other cars, mostly with the help of Jan Smith. He had worked some years in USA and there collected basic data. Gustaf had knowledge from his working in England. Jan had put together a scrapbook in which he had collected important principles for car production. This book now can be seen at Stockholm Technical Museum. This was close to stealing ideas.
At this time Chevrolet had established i Sweden and several ideas must have come from this car. This car was mounted in Stockholm. The rims with which the test cars got were delivered from Chevrolet. It was important to save money.

As far as up to now they worked with money from Assar and Gustaf. In June 1925 the chassis drawings were ready and Assar's work started to convince SKF to invest money for building a test series. There was no doubt that a marked for Swedish cars existed. 1925 Sweden imported almost 14500 cars for a value of 35 millions Skr.

SKF doesn't give money for the test series.

With the drawings under his arm Assar Gabrielsson went up the head office of SKF. As he was marketing director for Sweden, it was no problem for him to introduce his ideas. Note that SKF was still a subsidiary to Gamlestaden. Perhaps it was this cause that the board decided not to give money for a test series of cars.

Assar and Gustaf make the investment for the test series themselves.

Here could this dream stopped if not Assar had so much money. He could pay the introductory phase himself. This was what he and Gustaf decided. It would be better to have a car to show up. With  the help of provisions and own loans they started to order a series of 10 cars. These were to be put together at Galco under the lead of Gustaf Larsson.

About these 10 prototypes it was decided that the cars should be painted in different colors. Some of the test cars got later nicknames. One, the black, was called Jakob and another with oval rear window got "Orre kojan". The official designer MasOlle lived in Dalarna County. Note that the car hade not yet got the name Volvo. When talking about the cars the worker just said GL or Gustaf Larsson.

The first car.

The first production car was ready August 1926. Now Assar set Gamlestaden board on pressure and in just 2 days he had a contract ready and established a new company with the name Volvo and Assar Gabrielsson as director. He also got 2 millions loan. The old NKF factory became a new working place for Volvo cars.

"When it dealt about the tall tale that the first Volvo car only could be driven backward in normal gears, it could very well be true even if Volvo people, from this time, avoided to talk about this. The gearbox had straight cog wheels but the pinion drive had helical wheels and on the earliest rear drive a  control track was missing in the cover. This made that the pinion could be mounted in two ways. One was of course the wrong way. One control track was immediately done on all the following rear ends."

Today this small mishap, which all interested Volvo freaks talk about is good publicity for Volvo, in spite of the forgotten control track.

Hard in the beginning.

Everybody should know that the start up of Volvo did cost much money and the company gave no profit until 1929 and it was only about 1000:-. The need of money was great and SKF (Gamlestaden) put in 2 millions for several years ahead. It was also very close that Gamlestaden had chosen to withdraw when they doubt for success. But the small profit and that everything seemed to roll on 1929-1930. This much thanks for the home market.

The only Swedish rival stopped their production.

May be the rival for Volvo AB, Thulinverken (Teve) may be mentioned. They had already 1925 produced  a new car after the AGA car. It was constructed by Per and Hugo Weiertz. The Thulinverken leaders had produced 12 prototypes 1927. This model could have been a serious concurrent for Volvo on the market but Thulinverken hade no money to start production and the project was laid down. Instead Thulinverken started to produce different coach works for various kinds of car types. For ex. fire cars and ambulances and others.


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The car should not be equipped with a frame and this way had Volvo followed since 1926. Instead the body was built as a self-supporting unit. This was for Volvo the new way. The old way was that one must be inspired by USA and use a tested construction.

In order to get knowledge about self supporting bodies Volvo bought a pre war Hanomag car for study. About Hanomag it can also be told that late 1970 Hanomag production line for engines was bought by Volvo and moved to Sweden. See Svedinobil.

Now some very important decisions had to be taken. Engine, drive and body. These decisions should settle in what way they were to be built. Gustaf Larsson didn't take any notice about all work which had been done to chose the engine type. He just said "four cyl engine". Lucky enough for the future for Volvo was that it became overhead valves. At the Volvo museum some engines proposals are shown. One from Helmer Pettersson and another with id GA both with front wheel drive. Most American volume cars had 6 cyl side valve engines. Helmer's suggestion was a lying engine block with carburator straight up. All this was stopped by Gustaf Larsson at one of his weekly visits at the development department. This is why Volvo got a car with front end engine and rear drive.

The design oft the body became a lesser copy by the actual American cars during the 40th. Ford had made large amount of scale cars in Europe. For ex. Ford Eifel. Volvo PV got the same look as Ford, GM and Chrysler cars. Most alike was the Ford 1946. Volvo says that it is Pontiac which had given the main influence. This must have depend on that most managers earlier had worked in USA in different car factories. One exception was Helmer Pettersson who had worked at Henderson's motorcycles in competition department. 

Now the work was to get contract with all sub delivers in Sweden and abroad. This system had been used during the war when Sweden built their fighter planes. This was of vital importance for the good workmanship of the new Volvo. The most difficult problem was to get deep drawing sheet steel. It had to be used for pressing the body.

At this time just after the war it was very hard to buy this kind of steel. Remember that in the end of 40th and begin of 50th bodies for various car models were built by wood. All car factories wanted this special steel and the main deliverer was situated in USA. The trials for Volvo to buy this steel ended up with that Karl Lindblom, who had the responsibility for production of the car. He decided to take a PV prototype by air freight over to USA. With this car he drove around and tried to buy the steel plate. This was "open sesame" and Volvo got the necessary deliveries.

Köping factory got the order to produce the gearboxes.
Borås produced the engine. Volvo laid an order for 300 engines 1947.
Productions tools like fixtures there were no time for, so there were few. The first cars were hand built and therefore the chassis parts were not so accurate. 10 new cars were put together and after them the way of production system was settled.

On the 8th of February 1947 the first cars were delivered to Borås. The price was earlier decided to 4800:- Skr and in spite of considerable rise in costs. Volvo kept this promise for all contract sold cars. Later the price of the car raised to about 8000 during 1947. All who had a contract for a PV car could sell it for up to 13000:- Skr.

Now Volvo was in the way to produce cars as fast as the sales numbers. It was time to update the less good parts on the car. This way Volvo continued the whole lifetime of Volvo PV444.

1953 the Volvo Duett rolled out on the marked and 1958 Volvo PV544. 1965 the last PV rolled out from the line in Gothenburg after 440000 copies made. Now it was equipped with 1800 cc engine, 90 ps, 4 gears and 12 volt electric system.

For a long time a new car had been prepared and the new way was that car construction was so  complicated that construction was made by large teams and could not been related to one person. This was the future way to build new cars.

After PV444, Volvo Amazon was the car which Volvo delivered.

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