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Assar Gabrielsson and Gustav Larson founded Volvo, in 1924. The first Volvo car was the 1950cc Jakob, production got underway in 1927. Volvo's idea was to build a motorcar more appropriate to the Scandinavian climate than the US manufacturers were offering, Swedish steel would be used along with imported components.

Gabrielson financed the production of a dozen prototypes, with bodies styled in Sweden by Helmer Mas Olle. Ship builders Pentaverken built and supplied the engines, and SKF agreed to fund the production of the first 1000 cars, to be built at the Lundby factory near Gothenburg from 1927.

By 1932, the company were showing profits and output was around 1000 cars a year, although demand eased slightly due to the mid-30's recession. SKF surrendered control of Volvo in 1935, and at the same time Volvo took over Pentaverken, which went on to become the marine-engineering side of Volvo.

The first production of Volvo's modish-Ghia designed P1800 (launched in 1960) coupe was somewhat complicated. The steel bodies were tooled-up for and built in Britain by Pressed Steel in Scotland and then forwarded to Jensen, who with chassis parts supplied from Sweden, assembled the complete cars.

Although not a true sports car, the high-waisted P1800 was a good cruiser and with its overdrive gearbox had an acceptable top speed of more than 100mph. Attractive and practical, the P1800 rapidly gained popularity despite its high price tag, and its profile was further increased by its weekly appearances in the television series The Saint, driven by the star of the show Roger Moore, who happened to own the car in real life. Volvo, however, were never happy with the quality of the Jensen-built cars, and eventually moved production to Sweden in 1964, the new car to be known as the 1800S.

Throughout the 1980's, Volvo launched several new models, including the enormously popular 240, the 740, the 760, the 940, and the 960.

In 1999, Ford took a controlling interest in Volvo.

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