In the summer of 1924 Gabrielsson and Larson began seriously to discuss
plans for producing cars. They came to a verbal agreement in August and
a start had already been made on design work by September. In 1925,
Penta (a marine engine manufacturer) received its first order from their
newly started car enterprise on Hisingen outside Gothenburg started by
Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson. Volvo was born on April 14th, 1927,
when the first car, which was nicknamed "Jakob", left the factory in
Göteborg.
Once there was something to be seen, SKF became interested. It then
provided guarantees and credit for an initial series of 1,000 vehicles,
500 open and 500 covered. SKF also provided the factory premises and the
name, AB Volvo, which had been used in a previous business operation.
Volvo is Latin and means "I roll". The Volvo circle-and-arrow trademark
was created to represent strength, taking its graphic shape from the
traditional alchemist's symbol for iron ore.
Before 1927, before the birth of Volvo Company, car makers built cars by
choosing ready-made parts from catalogs and then assembling them into
cars. The results were of poor quality. Eventually many of the early car
makers ceased to exist. Volvo had a different philosophy: they believed
quality cars could only be built from designing components in-house,
contracting the designs to be built by manufacturers and finally
assembling the parts by experienced car builders. The desire to build
quality cars was the driving force behind Volvo. Combined with the name,
the Volvo graphic identity is "rolling strength" -- an expression of its
approach to building cars.
Today the Volvo brand is owned 50% by AB Volvo and 50% by Ford.
