You either have to be badly lost, or an extremely committed Swedish car enthusiast, to find yourself at the Volvo Museum.
The modestly sized glass building is on the outskirts of Gothenburg, looking out over the North Sea, near the port from which Volvos are shipped worldwide. You'd never find the museum amidst the anonymous low-rise industrial buildings and sprawling container yards, if not for the efficient Swedish signage guiding your every turn. It's not the sort of place for a typical weekend-getaway visit.
"If you make it simple, Stockholm has always been white collar and Gothenburg has always been blue collar," said Per-Ake Froberg, head of Volvo Cars Heritage. "We make things here," he said with pride.
In 1924, over crayfish and schnapps at a restaurant in Stockholm, two old friends - Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson - started talking about creating a car company. There was a need for cars that could deal with bad Swedish roads and the harsh climate. From the north, they could be sure of a steady supply of high-quality steel. Labour was relatively cheap. And, Froberg said, "Sweden came out of the First World War as an industrial nation; we had the work force, the engineers and the factories." By the end of lunch, it was decided: They would start a Swedish car company.
At 10 a.m. on April 14, 1927, the first Volvo - Latin for "I roll" - rolled off the assembly line, just down the road from where the museum is now.
Unfortunately, those first cars bombed. "The first year, we sold 297 cars and the plans were to sell 1,000," Froberg said. "The second year, the plans were for 4,000. I think we sold 900."
A Volvo P1900 displayed at a retro gas station exhibit at the Volvo Museum.
The bus and truck business kept Volvo afloat through the early years. "They put a truck chassis on a boat to Palestine and just drove around, taking orders," Froberg said. "It was fantastic! And they did the same in China."
After the Second World War, sales took off and Volvo began exporting cars to North America.
The PV144 was a hit in California. "It was sold and marketed as a family sports car: tough, durable, reliable," Froberg said.
A cream yellow 850 T5-R at the Volvo Museum.
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Volvo opened a factory in Nova Scotia in the 1960s, which produced versions of the Amazon, rebadged the Volvo Canadian.
You'll find these and many other cars, organized by decade, at the museum. There is a P1800, the same model that was driven by Roger Moore in The Saint, and a cream-yellow 850 T5-R that deserves collectible status.
There's a room dedicated to the favourite cars of Jan Wilsgaard, who died in 2016. He was a prolific designer, responsible for shaping four decades of Volvos. He was only 23 when he designed the Amazon, which still looks good today. He disliked the soft aerodynamic designs of the 1980s, preferring the straight-edge formality for which Volvo became known. It gave cars character, he said.
The so-ugly-it’s-awesome 262C.
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Elsewhere in the museum is a so-ugly-it's-awesome 262C built in Italy by Bertone, and a wall of 240 wagons - the car that most people probably picture when they think of Volvo.
The museum is open yearround and entry costs about $15 for adults. Swedes generally don't like to show off or flaunt their success. Perhaps this is why the Volvo museum is small - call it tastefully modest - compared with the ultramodern cathedrals Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and others have created for people to worship at the altar.
"A company can't be nostalgic," Froberg said. "A company always has to look forward to the next new technology, to the next launch. Heritage can be used to show that we're an authentic brand. … Nostalgia doesn't pay any bills; authenticity does."
Gothenburg is out of the way, but worth a visit, and not just for the museum. The city, Sweden's second largest, offers a welcome respite from stuffy and upright Stockholm. If you find yourself lost in Gothenburg, visit the Haga and Majorna neighbourhoods. They make things here.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.
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