Volvo Cars
Volvo Cars, or Volvo Personvagnar, is an automobile maker that was founded in 1927 in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden, as a spin-off from roller ball bearing maker SKF. It was owned by Volvo until 1999, when it was acquired by the Ford Motor Company.
Safety
Since the 1960s Volvo cars have had a reputation for safety in crashes, rather than speed or handling ability. The Volvo design team patented the 3-point seatbelt but soon after released it to the public, making Volvo the first company to offer as standard equipment this restraint. Volvo also was the first company to produce cars with padded dashboards starting in late 1956 with their Amazon model. In 2000, Volvo introduced its Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS), a safety device to prevent injury of front seat users during collisions. In 2004, Volvo introduced the BLIS system, which detects vehicles entering the Volvo's blind spot with a sideview mirror mounted sensor and alerts the driver with a light. Much of Volvo's saftey technology goes into other Ford vehicles, such as the Aston Martin DB9. By the mid-1990s there was little to distinguish most manufacturers on safety when put through tests such as EuroNCAP, however, Volvo is still considered a leader in safety technology, although it faces stiff competition in this field from Mercedes-Benz and Honda.
Acquisitions
In the early 1970s Volvo acquired the car-making division of the Dutch company DAF, and marketed their small cars as Volvos before releasing the Dutch-built 340 series. Smaller Volvos are still built in the Netherlands.
Volvo, as one of the largest truck manufacturers in the world, took the initiative to sell its automobile manufacturing in 1998 in order to fully focus its efforts on the market for commercial vehicles. Ford, on the other hand saw advantages in acquiring a profitable midsize European automobile manufacturer, well renowned for its safety aspects, as an addition to its Premier Automotive Group. The buyout of Volvo Cars was announced on January 28, 1998 and in the following year acquisition was completed at a price of $6.45 billion USD.
Volvo now consists of two parts:
The Volvo™ trademark is now jointly owned (50/50) by Volvo and Ford. One of the main promotional activities for the trademark is the sailing contest Volvo Ocean Race, formerly the Whitbread Around the World Cup. There is also a Volvo Baltic Race.
Car models
For a time, Volvo used a three number system for their cars. The first number was the series, the second number the number of cylinders and the third number the number of doors. So a 164 was a 1-series with a 6-cylinder engine and 4 doors. The company dropped the meaning of the final digit for later cars like the 740.
Today, the company uses a system of letters denoting body style followed by the series number. S means sedan, C means coupe, V means station wagon, and XC means cross country or all wheel drive. So a V50 is a station wagon ("V") in the smaller 40/50 series.
Engine types
Gearboxes
See also
