A long 85 years of fashion, fads and colour photography separates the historic drive through the factory gates of Volvo's first car. Celebrating Volvo's birthday this week is a recreation of the first car's first metres from obscurity and onto a Swedish icon that now sells almost 500,000 cars a year.
Volvo, Latin for "I roll'', sold 280 cars in its first year. The effort is more remarkable given the company founders, Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson, had no direct experience of cars or the automotive industry.
The company was initially funded by Swedish ball-bearing maker SKF who sold its share in 1935. Volvo's first mass-produced car, the 6V4 - but dubbed "Jakob" - rolled off the production line at the Lundby factory in Gothenburg, Sweden on April 14, 1927.
It was driven by then Volvo sales manager Hilmer Johansson and 85 years later, the same car was piloted by Volvo Car president and CEO, Stefan Jacoby with Volvo Group president Olof Persson as passenger.
The Volvo Group - which sold its car business to Ford in 1999 for about $6.5 billion - is the world's second-biggest manufacturer of heavy trucks and is Sweden's biggest company.
It produces trucks under the Volvo, Renault Trucks, Mack and UD Trucks brands, and makes buses, construction equipment, drive systems for marine and industrial applications and components for aircraft engines. Ford sold Volvo in 2010 to Chinese group Geely for $1.8 billion.