Volvo (
latin for "I roll") is a Swedish company, mainly known for building very
safe cars. Founded in
1915 by economist
Assar Gabrielsson and engineer
Gustaf Larson with the basic idea of building a genuinely
Swedish car (actual development and construction started in
1924), they now have their logo on literally millions of cars around the world. Naturally, those original Volvos (the first Volvo model was the
ÖV4) have little in common with the modern wonders of
technology which Volvo make today.
There are also parts of Volvo that make
engines - boats all over the world use engines from Volvo
Penta, and the first jet engine with an afterburner - the
RM2B - was developed at Volvo
Aero. Aero was in fact "Svenska Flygmotor AB" (Swedish Flight Engines Inc.), a company which Volvo bought, seeking to expand into new markets. One thing Volvo didn't buy, however, was their truck production, which started in
1928, and their marine engine production, which started in
1934. They have been very successful in both markets. However, Volvo didn't reach the United States until
1955, well after
World War 2.
The first Volvo which has any similarity to the Volvos of today was the
140, introduced in 1966. The 140 was a small
sedan with two doors, still without the characteristic Volvo
radiator on the front - covering most of the surface area between the headlights and decorated with a diagonal line, Volvo logotype in the center. This symbol of Volvoness didn't appear until the
240 - a car owned by many, many people, even today. Production of the 240 was started in 1974, and it underwent many changes until production was finally ceased in
1993. The
240 is (or was) not only
slow and
ugly, it is also very
safe, very
sturdy, and relatively common - nearly 3 million have been produced, counting both the five-door 245 (
van) and four-door (
sedan) 244 models.
In
1982, a new Volvo series was pioneered - the 700 series, starting with the
760 sedan - basically a redesigned 244, but with many improvements, the main one being design. Basically speaking, the 700's look
mean, especially the massively cool
740, which inherited many of the 240's advantages, including the overpowered
heater and never-failing sturdiness. It's not an understatement to say that old Volvos are built like tanks, but then again, that's what it takes for
Swedish roads. Lots and lots of 740's were sold, and most of them hold up pretty well today. However, due to the increased use of
electronics and other
fragile things, these cars sometimes break down in
mysterious ways. They also come with a sometimes all too fragile
gearbox, as I've discovered during voyages in my yellow 740 GL, built in
1988.
Later attempts to build more luxurious Volvos - the
900 series - largely failed, mainly because no-one who sought a comfortable car went to Volvo. No, they went to
Mercedes or
BMW. More recent efforts to build
cozy cars - the
S80 - have been slightly more successful. Still, the
940 and
960 were damn fine cars, although they came with
automatic gearboxes, something I personally detest. You see a lot of these as
limousines, however, and the 960 lived on for a while as the
S90.
Another
easily forgotten chapter of Volvo history is the 300/400 series - consisting of models
340,
460 and
480, attempts by Volvo to build small cars. However, these models were error-prone and neither was very good-looking. You see few of them on the roads today. There have been no attempts since by Volvo to build cars designed for fewer than four people, although some have been rumoured - the model
P80, for example.
This pretty much brings us to where Volvo is at today - well, there was the
800 series, consisting of the
850 - basically yet another re-iteration and redesign of the 240, this time with more
electronic goodies and a somewhat more modern design. The 850 was introduced in 1991 but was never as popular as the 740 before it, or the
V70 after. That's right, Volvo changed their naming convention. Previously, they had used three-digit model numbers: the first digit as the series, the second being the cylinder count, the third optionally specifying the number of doors - a 740
van would be a 745, a
sedan a 744. With the introduction of the new system, the initial
digit was replaced by a
letter specifying whether the car was a
Sedan,
Van, or
Coupé. The new cars off the line were the
V70 and
S70 in 1996, followed by the
S80 in 1998. Somewhere along the line there were also the
V40,
S40,
S60 and
C70. Some of these cars were quite different from each other, as you might learn if you check out some of those nodes - though I'm not sure how many of the Volvos have been noded yet.
Oh yeah, more recent Volvo models include the
V70R,
S60R,
XC and, coming soon, the
XC90. The first ones are basically souped-up versions of the V70 and S60, the latter is an
AWD (or
4WD) V70 with lots of extras, and the last one - the XC90 - is an
SUV. XC means
Cross Country. More about those autos in another node, I guess.
Anyway, I hope you now know more about Volvo. Keep them in mind the next time you're shopping for a car - they're not as cool as
BMW's, they're not as
phat as
Mercedes, but they get you where you want to go and make sure you get there in
one piece. They're also relatively
inexpensive as far as really good cars go.