Volvo Model by Model (eBook)

Martin Tilbrook (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
160 Seiten
The Crowood Press (Verlag)
978-0-7198-4212-2 (ISBN)

Infos

The book invites the reader, both Volvo fans and those with a more general interest in motoring - on board the company's landmark cars. Volvo Model by Model brings Volvo to life with the feel of the cars from behind the wheel, from the side-valve ÖV4 to the electric C40, with legends like the 240, the XC90 and the 850 in between. Volvo's marketing strategies from safety to sporty and back again are examined, with thoughts from contemporary road tests. So buckle up your Volvo-patented three-point safety belt, and prepare for the ride. In the 2020s Volvo is undergoing a resurgence, gaining mainstream desirability with record sales for six consecutive years. There is also huge interest in wider Scandinavian culture and design. Volvo Model by Model is a new look at the cars and cultural impact of Volvo. Always daring to be different, no other car manufacturer encapsulates its home nation so completely, accounting for one third of the Swedish dream Villa, Volvo, Vovve. Volvo started in 1927 but the open-topped ÖV4 didn't sell well in the harsh Swedish climate. This was a rare misstep, although there have some challenging aesthetics on the way like the 760. Volvo survived a failed marriage with Ford, which still produced one of the company's all-time best sellers. Volvo now has another home, China. Parent company Geely enables Volvo to freely express its Scandinavian style, and today's slick Swedes were voted the best-designed range of cars by British motorists. Concept Recharge points the way to an electric future.

Martin Tilbrook has a scientific background and works as a regulatory consultant; he also has an MA in Automotive Journalism. He writes for Volvo Driver magazine, and in 2016 won Car magazine's Phil Llewellin award for his account of driving an old S80 to Geneva, the event that started his fascination with all things Volvo. 

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

EARLY VOLVOS, 1927–58

Heading north on the E6, the landscape towards Gothenburg changes from cereals to grass then forests, a lake or two and cuttings driven through rocky outcrops. You might notice that your ageing S80 negotiates anti-clockwise roundabouts just fine, instead of stumbling and cutting power as it does on a clockwise circulation. Maybe it knows it’s on home soil. Or it might be that some joker plugged the ABS into the traction control module to ward off an MoT-failing warning light. The S80, answering to the name Sven, has already shrugged off a trip to Geneva in the company of Mr Wilkinson, who features in a number of subsequent Volvo-related adventures that will be related in these pages for your convenience. Now Sven is bound for Nordkapp. Just after Ängelholm (home of Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg), the E6 climbs 200m over the isolated Hallandsas ridge, the first hill of any sort since leaving Britain. It then carries on over miles more flat land as though nothing has happened.

PV 654 detail.

After negotiating rush-hour traffic, you’ll find Sweden’s second city buzzes with pavement cafés, restaurants and busily clanging trams. It’s a functional, working city with some pretty corners of canals, parkland and a side order of grit and grime. Gothenburg is powered by industry and creativity.

Two statues sum up the city. Evert Taube stands by the water’s edge in the harbour, looking something like a Hobbit on his way to a fishing-themed fancy dress party. It turns out Taube was one of Sweden’s most respected poets and musicians of the twentieth century, just behind Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn (the last of these, by the way, also born in Gothenburg, along with a whole heap of death metal groups). In contrast, in the industrial corner, the sculpture of one Charles Felix Lindberg properly depicts a Victorian shipping magnate striding purposefully on the spot for eternity with his cane, bowler hat, fearsome beard and a look to suggest that musical Hobbits had better not get in his way.

Göteborgsandan, the Gothenburg Spirit, is exemplified by both a great will and ability to cooperate between politicians, industry and academia, with an absence of politically motivated conflict. This leads to ideas: ideas like pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca, purveyors of vaccines to the masses, and bearing manufacturer SKF. And Volvo. Forbes ranked Gothenburg the twelfth most inventive city on the planet. That is punching well above its weight. Its two universities must help. Make that three, for Volvo runs its own. The downside is that this lack of challenge has led to charges of corruption, but nobody’s perfect.

Leaving the city behind, the old S80 steadfastly climbs the looping slip road onto the kilometre-long Älvsborg Bridge, suspended more than 45m above the Göta älv (‘River of the Geats’) with a drone’s eye view towards the home of Volvo cars and AB Volvo. Torslanda, the land of Thor, is a land of huge rocky outcrops, petrochemical plants and neatly styled running lights named after the tetchy Nordic god’s hammer. Approaching Volvo’s Torslanda plant on the aptly named Torslandavägen dual carriageway, a sign acknowledges the connection between dangerous Norse deities and safety-led car companies. ‘Volvo Torslanda Gods’, it says. To be strictly accurate, it says ‘Volvo Torslanda gods’, and is more prosaically the factory’s goods entrance. But we’ve arrived.

ÖV4, 1927–8

Volvo was actually hatched 470km north-east of Gothenburg over a lunch of crayfish at Stockholm’s Sturehof restaurant. Accounts differ. Some say suave sales director Assar Gabrielsson and rough-hewn engineer Gustaf Larson arranged to meet, others that they bumped into each other by chance. It does seem fairly certain that the idea of Volvo was born that day in August 1924. Gabrielsson had spotted an opportunity: Sweden was belatedly industrialising, including high-quality steel manufacturing, and incomes were rising. There was a fledgling market for cars. Richard Dredge states that of the 15,000 sold in Sweden in 1924, all but twenty were imported from North America. Conditions in 1920s Sweden were similar to those prevailing in the States at the time with extremely rough, potholed roads (much like twenty-first-century Britain).

The 4-cylinder ÖV4 open tourer of 1927 was Volvo’s first design.

Design of a 2-litre, 4-cylinder open car started in mid-1925. Volvo chose Skövde-based marine engine company Pentaverken to supply the 28bhp, 2-litre, sidevalve 4-cylinder engine rather than attempt in-house manufacture. The first car allegedly reversed back into the factory as the differential had been assembled incorrectly. This seems to have been a practice run, and there was time for some hasty re-assembly before the press arrived. Second time around, sales manager Hilmar Johanssen emerged gloriously into the Gothenburg sun astride the first Volvo in forward motion.

By now, Mr Wilkinson was also fully embroiled in the quest to bring almost every Volvo to life for you, with the exception of the S40 (sorry, S40 fans). Mr W is also called Martin, hence this slightly clunky exposition as the multiple Martin references might otherwise get confusing. Volvo UK’s press and heritage fleets had supplied the current cars and a good number of the earlier models for examination. The Volvo Museum and a mix of franchised and independent dealers had filled most of the gaps. Not altogether surprisingly, however, pre-Second World War Volvos are somewhat rare, especially in the UK. But Mr Wilkinson and I had heard of a mysterious Dr Double-A, head of the shadowy VOC organisation, who allegedly kept several examples captive in a secret bunker somewhere off the coast of Iceland. Doggedly, we tracked him down. It was actually quite easy. Contrary to the scenario cooked up in our overheated imaginations, Andrew Anderson turned out to be a Peterborough-based GP and a director of the Volvo Owners’ Club. His phone number is in Volvo Driver. Andrew and Julie were only too pleased to share their ÖV4, PV651, PV36 and PV60. They even gave us lunch. So here’s the procedure for starting an ÖV4, as demonstrated by Andrew after lunch. Open the tap for the gravity-fed header tank on the bulkhead. An inlet manifold vacuum pump brings fuel from the main tank. Prime the carb. Full choke to start, half choke immediately after firing (as full choke is almost all petrol). Cross fingers. But the starter grinds, and the ÖV4 settles into a strong, confident tickover.

Open the narrow, front-hinged door, somehow slide in behind the ship-sized wooden wheel and into the driver’s seat. There’s a conventional three-pedal layout, but everything else is a bit alien. It’s narrow up here, as the ÖV’s body is shaped like a boat seen from above, tapering into the bonnet. It means the windscreen is also narrow, the hood overhanging on each side. The wooden hood hoops rest on your head, which is not ideal. There’s more room behind, more width and much more headroom as the hood rises towards the rear of the car. There’s some lovely detailing. The radiator case and Volvo logo are a beautifully solid one-piece casting. Embossed leather Volvo symbols on the door pockets are another nice touch. There’s no other luggage room at all.

Underway, the hood acts as a parachute, scooping air into the car. That narrow windscreen means rear-seat passengers sit outside it. There’s no side glass. Even at 15–20mph wind chill is noticeable. You would need to be dressed up in a Swedish winter. Meanwhile, if it’s raining, the driver has to juggle driving (including double declutching) with manipulating the single manually operated wiper.

The brakes don’t, not really. They’re operated by cables on the rear wheels only. But in between bouts of fuel starvation the UK’s only ÖV4 runs very well. The engine stops until the fuel supply catches up and refills the carb, when the cycle can begin again. It gives us a few seconds for Mr Wilkinson and I to talk with Dr Double-A. A hundred metres from home, the engine cuts again. ‘No problem,’ says Andrew confidently, ‘we can coast’. The road is gently downhill all the way. We can coast. The only thing is, Andrew’s drive is uphill, and not all that gently. It becomes obvious he has no intention of pushing the Volvo into the garage. This ninety-four-year-old car, which, let me emphasise, is just six years old short of its century, swings left off the road pretty much horizontally and dives into the rack-lined garage like a Chorkie into a flower pot. A strategically placed railway sleeper stops us from crashing through the glass door into Andrew’s home office: the brakes weren’t interested in helping out. ‘That was slightly terrifying,’ I squeak. ‘Slightly?’ Martin queries, opening his eyes. ‘You guys!’ says Andrew, turning around with a grin. Maybe he does this all the time. It’s quite a party trick.

ÖV4 (Source: Volvo)

Variants

ÖV4 TV (Pick up), ÖV4 Chassis

Produced

275 (of which 205 delivered with open tourer body)

Body	Open tourer, or as a chassis

Engine

In-line 4-cylinder with side valves; 1944cc; 75 × 110mm; 28bhp at 2,000rpm

Transmission

3-speed, non-synchromesh

SKÖVDE

Pentaverken, which started producing internal combustion engines in Skövde in 1907, was taken over by Volvo in 1935. Skövde became...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.9.2023
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Auto / Motorrad
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie
• Schlagworte: 1800 • 700/900 • amazon • Assar Gabrielsson • C30 • C40 • Classic Cars • Disponent • Estate • Geely • Gothenburg • Gustaf Larson • Hilmar Johanssen • Motorsport • OV4 • ÖV4 • Pentaverken engine • PV 36 Carioca • PV 444 • PV 544 • PV 60 • PV 651 • S60 I • S60 II • S80 I • S80 II • Sport • S/V90 • Sweden • swedish • Swedish Utility Vehicle • Torslanda • V40 II • V50 • V60 I • V60 II • V70 II • XC40 • XC60 II • XC90 II
• ISBN-10: 0-7198-4212-3 / 0719842123
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7198-4212-2 / 9780719842122