The history of the Volvo brand name
Already the year before, Svenska Kullagerfabriken – SKF – had realised the enormous market potential the automotive business offered for a manufacturer of bearings, and accordingly started up a subsidiary to supply this industry. SKF was already a world-leading developer and manufacturer of industrial bearings thanks to the unique invention of its founder Sven Wingquist, the spherical bearing.
Volvo – simple, smart and easy to pronounce
Some smart member of the company's management with an ear for words and
languages came up with the name VOLVO (with capital letters) and on February
20, 1915, the application documents were sent from SKF – through the AB
Delmar & Co Patent Office in Stockholm – to the Royal Swedish Patent
& Registration Office.
"Volvere" is the infinitive form of the verb "roll"
in Latin. Compare it, for instance, with the word for a handgun with a
rotating drum, revolver. In its first person singular form, the verb "volvere"
becomes "volvo", i.e. "I roll".
The name was simple, ingenious and with a very strong symbolic connection
to the company's entire operation. Furthermore, it contained no R or S. Easy
to pronounce in most places around the world and with a minimal risk for
spelling errors. SKF was a large export company already in those days and
fully realised the value of a good brand name.
The American industrialist and camera manufacturer Eastman, who had invented
roll film a couple of years earlier, reasoned in the same way and chose a
simple brand name withour either R or S in it for his products.
Everything that rolls
In order to obtain the greatest possible freedom in the use of the new brand
name, SKF grabbed the opportunity to cover a vast range of very different –
but mutually connected – products when describing the company's operations
in the brand name application. Some already existed, other would appear later
and some came to nothing at all:
"Ball bearings, roller bearings, machines, transmissions, automobiles,
bicyles, railway materiel, transportation devices, means of transport of all
kinds and parts of and accessories for the aforementioned products".
The bicycles and the railway materiel are yet to appear, but there have been a few Volvo automobiles and other transportation devices produced over the years. Some other products that also have carried the brand name Volvo are such oddities as producer-gas burners, camping trailers and office chairs.
Full speed ahead – after five years of rest
Shortly after the start of Volvo, the automotive business came to an abrupt
halt because of World War I. Potential bearing customers had to change over
from cars to heavy vehicle production and other war materiel. After five years
of existence, although not all of them in full operation, Aktiebolaget Volvo
was discontinued in 1920. SKF had decided to market all their products under
one name in the future – its own.
AB Volvo was put away in a desk drawer and rested there until August 1926
when the SKF board, after a long campaign of persuasion, eventually agreed to
financially support the idea of starting up a car manufacturing operation.
This had for some years been the brainchild of one very headstrong SKF
employee, a certain Assar Gabrielsson.
Together with his good friend, engineer Gustaf Larson, Gabrielsson urged the
building a Swedish car. SKF finally gave the go-ahead, provided the money and
from the drawer of a certain desk, produced the company documents for AB
Volvo. The legal name of the company was also chosen as the name for the cars
to be produced. During the prototype stage they had been called GL and Larson,
after Gustaf.
Ancient logotype
At the same time, the ancient chemical symbol for iron, a circle with an arrow
pointing diagonally upwards to the right, was adopted.
This is one of the oldest and most common ideograms in the Western culture and
originally stood for the planet Mars in the Roman Empire. Because it also
symbolised the Roman god of warfare, Mars, and the masculine gender, an early
relationship was established between the Mars symbol and the metal of which
most weapons were made at the time, iron.
As such, the ideogram has long been the symbol of the iron industry, not least
in Sweden. The iron badge on the car was supposed to take up this symbolism
and create associations with the honoured traditions of the Swedish iron
industry; steel and strength. The new car also got its name Volvo written in
its own typeface.
The logotype was complemented with a diagonal band running across the radiator, from top left to lower right, already on the first car in April 1927. The band was originally a technical necessity to keep the chrome badge in place but it gradually developed into being a more of a decorative symbol. It is still found across the grille of everyVolvo vehicle. And in the centre of the steering wheel you still find the iron symbol.
I am still rolling
In 1999, the Volvo Car Corporation was sold by its owner AB Volvo to Ford
Motor Company. One reservation was, stipulated, however: that the brand name
should be used also in the future by both Volvo Cars and the rest of the
companies in the Volvo Group.
The brand name was consequently put into a holding company, Volvo Trademark
Holding AB, which is co-owned fifty-fifty by Volvo and Ford, and whose
management decides on how the name can be used and in what contexts.
Currently, the holding company's management group consists of Leif Johansson,
President & CEO of AB Volvo and Bill Ford Jr, Chairman & CEO of
Ford Motor Company.
Almost 15 million Volvo cars have been produced and of course millions of
trucks, buses, marine, aero and industrial engines, construction equipment and
so on. Of all the cars manufactured to date, some 8 million are still rolling
today.
Little did patent engineer Evald Delmar realise when he signed the application
documents in his capacity as SKF representative, that he was about to play an
important part in creating what was to become a global industrial concern
whose name is still well-known and well-respected around the world, more than
90 years later.
