Holy crap, they actually did it: they let 2025 expire. Someone didn’t pay the year bill, and now they’re cutting off all of our 2025. Great. But don’t panic! It looks like someone got a free trial of 2026, so I guess we’re just going to move over to that? That’s fine. How bad could it be? Also, if we move to 2026, then there will be an important car, one that has a human name even, that will turn 100 years old! That’s exciting, right?
Want to know what that car is? Of course you do, you’re human, full of wonder and a deep, powerful interest in cars. The car I’m talking about is interesting in the sense of its significance as the start of this well-known automaker, though the car itself, while charming, isn’t especially novel in technical or design ways, not really.
I feel like any hints I can give about this car would give it away too easily; the traits that the automaker is known for today are too closely associated with it, enough that I think I could tell you just two descriptive words and most people – even people not really into cars – could guess it in, at most, two tries.
Here’s one hint, though: this car was nicknamed “Jakob.” Does that help? Well, here’s the car I’m thinking of:
The Volvo ÖV 4. Well, I’m actually specifically talking about one of the 10 prototypes for the ÖV 4 which were built in 1926, and one of which was called “Jakob.” I’ll explain why in a moment.
The point is, this was the very first Volvo car, ever, and 1926 is the year it was built, and the year that Volvo was founded, initially as a subsidiary to a bearing and seal (like a grommet, not like the dog of the sea kind) company called SKF.
The company was founded by Gustav Larson and Assar Gabrielsson with the goal of designing an building a car that could withstand Sweden’s rough road conditions and harsh, cold winters. With that in mind, somehow these two ended up designing a freaking convertible, which is one of the more delightfully baffling design choices in all of automobilia.
Oh and here’s an interesting detail: see how the logo – taken from the old alchemical symbol for iron, not males, as is sometimes thought – is mounted to the grille?
On that diagonal bar, all cast into the grille’s chrome shell. That was used because it was just the easiest, cheapest way to get the logo in the center as part of the radiator shell: a diagonal bar. And that diagonal bar is still part of Volvo’s branding today, even on their modern EVs that don’t even have grilles.
The car was officially known as “Öppen Vagn 4 cylindrar” which just means an open car with four cylinders, traits the car definitely had. For some reason that I have yet to really find out, the prototype that was finished on July 25, 1926 was named Jakob because that was the name of that date’s Name Day, which is a sort of observance I wasn’t familiar with.
It seems that, in Sweden and some other places, there is a tradition where each calendar day has a name associated with it, and as a result one can celebrate a “name day.” It started as a list of Saint’s Days and then morphed into the more general name day thing – honestly, that’s all probably too much for this post, and would be better on the name-focused website we’ll be launching soon, Nomenculture.
Why did none of the other nine prototypes not get named as well? I should probably reach out to Volvo and ask.
Back to the car. The ÖV 4 had a 1.9-liter inline four making a quite-respectable-for-the-time 28 horsepower, with a three-speed manual gearbox. The chassis designer, Jan G. Smith, worked in America’s car industry and learned a great deal, so this first Volvo follows a lot of American-style design practices.
Jakob and his nine siblings were extensively tested on Sweden’s rugged roads and harsh weather, and the design was refined and tweaked and by 1927, the ÖV 4 was ready to launch. Well, almost; on the day it was supposed to roll out of the factory, the first car would only go backwards. There was a pinion in the rear axle that was installed backwards, so they had to fix that and officially launch the car the next day.
Volvo only sold about 205 ÖV 4s, largely because, duh, it’s cold as hell in Sweden and no one wants a convertible. They followed it up with the PV 4, which was actually closed, and haven’t looked back since.
So, there’s something to look forward to: the proto-Volvo named Jakob will turn 100 this year!
I hope everyone’s 2025 ends in a pleasing way, and that 2026 proves great! I’m hopeful? Cautiously?
I do love the down to earth logic Volvo car naming of earlier. PV is for personvagn which translates to passenger car.
(And of course nice to read about a car with my name on it 🙂 )
They tried to make it go all haywire in 1956 with the Amazon, but returned to logic in 1966 with the 100 series, which became the 200 series, and then the 700 and 900 series, for conventional (European) full size cars with rear wheel drive.
Second digit for the engine and third for the doors.
Owned a 164 once, as my first classic car ever, so a 100 series with six cylinders and four doors!
So in Sweden carmakers starts as a subsidiary of another company that build something else… and gets sold to Ameriican car makers that just ends up killing them or selling them to Chinese car makers.
All the while the parent company is quite sucessful.
All the while I thought the logo was designed from the 3 point seatbelt. Turns out Volvo had the logo right from the start
I own one of these.
It’s name is Sven.
If it had one headlight, I’d have guessed Jakob Dylan.
Crysler? oh wait 1925.
Ducatti ! Does Ducatti count? The Ducatti brothers.
Toyota was founded as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. in1926. I believe they dabbled in cars later.
Siata was founded in 1926 thats an acronym.
On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and Daimler merged as Daimler-Benz automobiles and created the Mercedes brand. Not to be confused with our Miss Mercedes
um, Pontiac?
Of all of those, Mercedes is the only first name, that of Mercédès Jellinek
Been spending a lot of time in Greece lately and Name Day is very much a thing there. People take time off from work, have parties, etc. Kind of cool and confusing at the same time, but I guess many cool things are a bit confusing.
I bet “Nick Day” the whole economy shuts down and the beaches are packed.
/American stereotypes
So, like a dog of the Claymation kind?
That’s nickel plating, not chrome.
What’s up with that pic of Jakob in the snow? Tire chains on the front right, some kind of oddly-spaced straps on the rear left, nothing at all on the front left.
The Swedish are a deeply weird folk.
Lutefisk on the unseen rear right.
I can’t wait to be a part of the “guess that namem Nomenculture”
That site name, which is clever, could also be read as three discrete words which would throw grist on the fire (to met mixaphors) of every year’s Superb Owl: Neanderthals vs Humanity.
2025 was the year it all made sense.
The iconography that is.
The time distorting rapid aging, the need for diapers, feeling exhausted and used up. Huh, explains the drinking.
Oppen Vagn sounds like something Bobs Guy says to Alanis
Great article!
Why a convertible? My guess is it was easier to build.
Among the various automotive technical innovations we take for granted is the enclosed sedan. That’s a lot of wood and fabric (originally), metal, and glass to form and fasten together, and a lot of extra weight for the chassis to carry around. It’s a lot of added cost for the builder and buyer too.
1925 was the first year that closed cars outsold open body styles in the US, thanks partially to Hudson’s affordable Essex brand.
And while Dodge had featured all-steel bodies since the start, they didn’t master the art of full-panel stampings until 1928 (in partnership with Budd).
Even then, closed cars still had fabric roof inserts. GM debuted the “turret top” steel roof in 1935.
Every winter morning is a Cold Start in an ÖV 4.
Volvo only sold about 205 ÖV 4s, largely because, duh, it’s cold as hell in Sweden and no one wants a convertible
Summer is actually quite pleasant in Sweden. Which is good because summer daytime can go from 2AM to 11 PM.
I’m always amused to see “cold as hell” written, given that that hell is known for being, well, not cold
Not that it matters much when you have no physical form anymore to experience temperature with. Hot, cold its all the same.
Unless something major happens causing hell to freeze over…
https://blenderartists.org/t/hell-explained-by-chemistry-student/372515
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/515583-joke-canadians-in-hell/
Well, according to Dante, the ninth circle of hell is quite frosty indeed.
There HAS to be a better way to write that headline.
My try at fixing it added one more to the already large word count but was grammatically better. I didn’t come up with anything correct and concise and smooth.
Let’s see it. I’m realizing that I’ve complained without a solution so I’ll take a stab at it since I’m too late to edit/redact my dumb comment.
What company’s first car had a person’s first name in 1926?
That’s even ADDING a word, because obviously MOST cars have at least one person’s (usually last) name.
You could even retain the Tomorrow is 2026, and still start with Guess, if that’s how internet headlines are supposed to work.
Eh, I suppose “grabby” is more important than “clear.” Fun article, anyway.
orig: Tomorrow Is 2026: Guess What Car With A Person’s Name And Was The Start Of A Famous Carmaker Will Turn 100
edited for clarity: Tomorrow Is 2026: Guess What Car That Had A Person’s Name And Was The Start Of A Famous Carmaker Will Turn 100
It’s a tricky business and nobody here is foremost an editor, including myself…but I had to read that headline about four times before I figured out what it was trying to say!
The convertible was such a bad idea that they waited 75 years before offering another one.
I was worried that Dodge had been nationalized and renamed to 47 or 67 or some other equally inane meme.
If you told me the term for “seal” in French was “dog of the sea” I’d believe it.
or in German, as one of those compound words.
I stopped making my 2025 subscription payments in February. It’s about time that they showed up to repo that piece of crap.
Why would anyone want this burnt out shell of a year back?
I will say I’m liking the vibe shift from “Weimar 1933” to “Watergate 1973” so far, though, and I hope they stick with the latter.
Celebrate the little victories.