It’s over 80 years that Volvo have been making cars now and that’s a long time, but in that time, Volvo have built a massive 15 million vehicles.
The very first Volvo car left the factory on April 14, 1927 and it was called the ÖV4 which meant “Open vehicle” with 4 indicating the number of cylinders in its engine. On 20 February 2008, car number 15 million, an open car again, but this time a Volvo C70 convertible, left the Volvo factory in Uddevalla, Sweden.
Now owned by The Ford Motor Company, Volvo still retains the laurels as a leader in safety innovation and have been the first to introduce so many advances, such as vehicle safety cage, laminated windscreens, 3 point seat belts, padded dashboards, crumple zones, head restraints, inertia reel seat belts, 3 point rear seat belts, energy absorbing bumpers, day running lamps, “Anti–submarining” protection, driver airbags, side impact bars and the list goes on and on with 100’s of other innovation firsts.
Don’t forget, whilst Volvo were doing this, safety was not considered to be a fashionable or important thing at all and Volvo were considered as a bit quirky, a bit off the mark and possibly stupid to waste all that time on making a car safer, whilst most of the other car manufacturers were just trying to make their cars look prettier, and go faster.
So I guess even if you have never had a Volvo yourself, you should light a cigar and tip your glass to Volvo, for without the lead they took, the roads would be a far less safe place to be and many of us just might not be here today.
I hope you all join me in saying well done and giving a big thank you to Volvo.
