1927: After a Botched Rollout, an “Open Carriage” Motor Vehicle Becomes the First Automobile Introduced by Volvo

April 14, 1927

The first automobile to be manufactured by the newly formed Swedish manufacturer Volvo made its public debut. Volvo was established as a subsidiary of SKF, a bearing and seal manufacturing company based in the city of Gothenburg on Sweden’s western coast.

In 1915, SKF had registered the trademark Volvo — the Latin phrase for “I roll” — Latin — with the initial intent to use it for a planned series of ball bearings for the American market. SKF ultimately never used the trademark for those products but eventually adopted it instead for the enterprise that produced automobiles under the company’s auspices.  

SKF sales manager and industrialist Assar Gabrielsson was appointed managing director of Volvo, while engineer Gustav Larson was named the automotive firm’s technical manager. The first automobile to be built under their leadership was called the Volvo ÖV 4. This designation stands for “Öppen Vagn 4 cynlindrar” in Swedish; the English translation is “Open Carriage, four cylinders.”

Larson designed the engine for this motor vehicle. Jan G. Smith, a Stockholm-born engineer who had worked in the American automobile industry for quite a few years before returning to his native country, designed the main chassis components for ÖV 4. The rollout of this automobile off the Volvo factory’s assembly line was originally set to take place on April 13, 1927. An engineer named Eric Carlberg was assigned to drive the first of these vehicles, but this formal introduction of ÖV 4 proved to be decidedly unsuccessful and even embarrassing.

What happened is that when Carlberg shifted to first gear, the automobile unexpectedly moved backwards instead. A subsequent examination of what went wrong revealed that the differential gear in the vehicle’s rear axle had been installed incorrectly. This blunder delayed the planned launch of ÖV 4, which was finally held the following day without incident. (The accompanying photo depicts the first of these vehicles — if not the first one — on the assembly line at the time.)

A total of 996 of these vehicles, which included a covered version officially known as PV 4, were manufactured up until 1927. Volvo has since achieved worldwide popularity as a multinational producer of sedans, station wagons, and SUVs. The marketing of these automobiles has been focused in large part on their safety design features as well as their Swedish heritage.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on the Volvo  ÖV 4, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_%C3%96V_4