Chronicle of the sub-frigid zone: the old tidbits in Swedish automobile history.

Yesterday, a friend asked me about the corners of Volvo. On second thought, it seems that all Swedish cars can talk about now is Volvo and Koenigsegg, as if this represents all Swedish cars. Older people may remember Saab, and then what? No, and then. ...

Wouldn't it be much more interesting if I said that Mercedes tore up Saab's predecessor because of its logo, and Saab's first car actually came from a "layman group" who couldn't drive, and Volvo almost merged with Saab?

These things have to start with the first car in Swedish history. Almost everyone knows that Karl Benz invented the first modern automobile in 1885, and Sweden, which belongs to Europe, started its automobile industry not too late. About 189 1- 1892, Jones (J? Ns) and Anders Cederholm (Anders? Cederholm) brothers made the first steam car in Swedish history, although the original purpose of the brothers was to facilitate the pulling of goods from home to suburban holiday villas.

The two brothers who made Sweden's first car soon caused the first car accident in Swedish history, and the Swedish car that didn't catch fire was scrapped. But they quickly "saved" the second improved steam car, and now this "Swedish second" is displayed in the museum.

Almost at the same time, a family named Surahammars? Brooke? AB's iron and steel company set up a Wabis engineering subsidiary in the suburb of Stockholm to develop and manufacture train carriages, railway signal devices and other steel castings. The newly established Wabis company hired designer Gustav Eriksson (Gustav? Erikson), this guy has been to Germany, France and Britain, studied car design, and has a Swedish car dream in his heart.

1897, Gustav crudely built a kerosene engine car. Although this car has only 6 horsepower, this does not affect it to become the first diesel locomotive in Swedish history. 1898 Gustav designed a 2.7L? A new car with a four-cylinder gasoline engine.

At the end of 1903, VABIS's first car appeared at the Paris Motor Show and won the company's first order in the same year, but it was not a passenger car, but a model called Ystad? Esl？ vsJ？ rnv？ G's railway inspection vehicle. In the following days, although Gustav designed and manufactured a variety of engines, Wabis' car business has been unable to make ends meet.

Also at 190 1, the bike company Maskinfabriks in Malm?, southern Sweden? AB？ Scania also built the first prototype-Scania? A 1, and began to produce trucks on 1903. Four years later, Maskinfabriks? AB？ Scania developed and manufactured their first industrial engine.

19 10 year, Maskinfabriks? AB？ Scania ushered in the first batch of products for export, and the trucks they manufactured received orders from St. Petersburg, Russia. At this time, Wabis was on the verge of bankruptcy, so in 19 1 1, Maskinfabriks? AB？ Scania and Wabis merged, and the new company after reorganization was named AB? Scania-Wabis Company. Translated into Chinese, it is "Scania-Wabis". AB？ The symbol of Scania-Wabis consists of the emblem Griffin beast of Scania province and the pedal crank element symbolizing bicycle.

The merged AB? Scania-Wabis maintained the business attributes of the original two companies, namely Maskinfabriks? AB？ Scania continues to produce trucks in Malmo and maintains its main passenger car business in Wabis, a suburb of Stockholm. AB？ Scania-Wabis's positioning of high-end passenger cars can be said to be the first luxury car brand in Sweden, which attracted the attention of the upper class in a short time. Prince Carl of Sweden is one of its owners. His Scania Wabis? 3S has a car phone device, so the prince can sit in the back row and talk to the driver directly.

During World War I, AB? Scania-Vabis received a large number of military orders, and the company immediately adjusted its business focus to serve the military. Although this made the company earn a lot of money, it also lost a lot of civil market, which directly led to the reorganization of the company in 192 1.

Although the name of the company remained unchanged after the reorganization, the passenger car business was basically fragmented until 1969 merged with SAAB, another company that started with airplanes. After the reorganization, Wabis was erased from the company name and renamed AB? SAAB- Scania company.

By the way, AB? Scania Wabis and Mercedes tore it once. 1968, does Mercedes think AB? Scania-Wabis? The pedal crank element in LOGO is similar to trident star, and a paper complaint puts AB? Scania-Wabis is in court. As a result, Mercedes won the case, AB? Scania-Wabis had to update its logo. During the period of 1969- 1984, Scania's LOGO only had simple graphics and characters.

/kloc-during the 1920s, a large number of American car companies flooded into Sweden like gold diggers, and Ford, Chrysler and General Motors all set up factories in Sweden. 1937 A family named ABNyk? PingsAutomobilfabrik(ANA) was founded, initially as Chrysler's assembly plant in Sweden, and later became a contract manufacturer to produce Skoda. 1960, after ANA was acquired by Saab, it stopped its automobile manufacturing business, transformed into an automobile sales agent, began to undertake the sales work of Saab, and later represented BMW and mini in Sweden.

Now that we have talked about Saab, it is not very kind not to talk about this "military-to-civilian" car company. Besides, Saab is also a brand that popularizes turbocharging, although it is completely cold now. As for Evergrande's "reborn" Hengchi, wave after wave of publicity, the standard real estate brainwashing communication. As for the curative effect? Let's wait until the car goes on the market.

In fact, Saab's car-making is purely "doing nothing". After World War II, Swedish military enterprises began to seek civilian transformation to keep their spare workshops busy, including Svenska? Aeroplan？ AB, translated as "Swedish Aircraft Co., Ltd.", abbreviated as "SAAB".

Saab automobile (Saab? Cars? AB) was founded in 1945, when a company named "Project? The goal of the "92" automobile project is to design an independent product that can compete with German small cars such as Volkswagen Beetle and Opel Cady. In the early stage, the design team only had a group of 16 people transferred from the aircraft project, and only two of these 16 people had driver's licenses, which was an out-and-out "amateur group".

In order to know what it's like to design and manufacture cars, these "amateurs" also went to the ANA company mentioned above to observe and inspect. Of course, they also take foreign mature models for "reverse research and development", including many products of Volkswagen and DKW (one of Audi's predecessors). Besides, Saab's "project"? 92 "is strictly confidential, and everyone is" behind closed doors "in a workshop 30 meters underground.

In the spring of 1946, the "laity group" made a wooden model. They couldn't even find the right paint, so they had to paint it with black shoe polish. But the result is good. These people who make planes keep the wind resistance of their new cars at 0.32cd when they get up. 1In the autumn of 946, they asked the blacksmith to knock out the car body, and then plugged in DKW's 13kW two-stroke engine and gearbox, thus the first Saab prototype was born. The layman named ta "9200 1" and later renamed it "Ursaab", which means "original Saab".

Then the test work began. Because the project was strictly confidential, the "amateur group" could only go out at night and take Ursaab to the expressway when no one was there at night. After 530 thousand kilometers of road test and the production of four prototype cars, Saab's automobile project was finally exposed to the media in 1947.

1949, the production version of Ursaab went on sale, which was Saab's first product-Saab 92. Saab 92 is equipped with a 0.76L transverse two-stroke twin-cylinder engine, with the maximum power 19kW and the maximum speed 105km/h ... It is worth mentioning that the early Saab 92 only provided green paint, because there were a lot of green paints left in the aircraft manufactured during World War II, and other colors were not provided until Saab 92B, a modified model of 1953.

After the "verification" of Saab 92, Saab automobile began to usher in high light in the mid-1950s. Within five years, Saab 93, Saab 94, Saab 95, Saab 96 and Saab GT750 were launched in one breath, including cars, coupes, sports cars and station wagons. During this period, Saab started the "blindfolded running" mode, and they discovered the "New World". Almost all of the above products have been exported to the United States in large quantities, making huge profits for Saab.

However, the oil crisis of 1973 suddenly cooled down the car companies all over the world, and the relatively "mini" enterprise structure of Swedish cars made them realize that they needed to increase their scale to improve their ability to resist risks. In the mid-1970s, although Volvo has become the largest automobile manufacturer in Sweden and the seventh largest automobile manufacturer in the world, it still needs to "report to the group for heating".

1976 In May, Volvo approached Saab and put forward a plan for the merger of the two companies. If the merger is successful, the reorganized Volvo-Saab will suddenly become the fifth largest automobile manufacturer in the world, second only to Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota and Renault. Everything went well at first, even the general manager of Saab Scania publicly stated at the press conference that the two companies had the idea of merging almost at the same time, which could offset the decline in sales caused by high labor costs.

But then things took a turn for the worse, and the top management of Saab Scania had internal differences on the issue of merger and began a protracted internal tug-of-war. After waiting for several months, Volvo lost patience. 1In August, 977, Volvo announced that it would no longer wait for the results of internal discussions between Saab and Scania, and the merger plan was terminated immediately.

Now it seems that if Volvo and Saab merge successfully, it may not happen that both of them were "committed" to American car companies in the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps Saab can still be active in the automobile market today ... Later Geely "redeemed" Volvo from Ford, which was actually a rescue. If you drive Volvo V60 in Ford era and Geely era at the same time, you will find that the driving quality of the two is completely different.

In fact, there are too many stories to tell about Swedish cars. For example, 1903, there is a Swedish car brand called AMG, and Koenigsegg's dream of super-running actually comes from a cartoon. But I really can't write anymore, so I won't say it. This article doesn't mention Volvo too much, because it is too familiar, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that I will dig up some Volvo lace on a whim one day. ...

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.