project initially was actually extra sales commissions that he had saved from the time he was the managing director for the SKF subsidiary in Paris from 1921 to 1922. Back to 1922-23 The original idea, presented by Assar to SKF, was to start an automobile manufacturing business within SKF in order to get advantages over competitors when developing new bearings for the automobile industry, increased sales of bearings, but more important, the positive effects it would have on Swedish industry as a whole. He developed these ideas during the time he worked as managing director for the SKF subsidiary company in Paris 1921-22 when he discovered that competitor bearing companies in Europe had started to invest a lot in automobile companies in order to secure their sales to key customers. However, Gabrielsson failed to convince the board of SKF about his ideas, and the SKF company core business was bearings with no room for an automobile company. Assar then decided to build a test series of ten vehicles with his own financing and later present the car and an entire investment plan to SKF. The idea to build a pre-series of ten vehicles was most certainly related to the fact that no company would have given them an offer for the components (engines, gearboxes, chassis components etc.) with a less quantity and Assar were at that time certain that SKF would approve his plans in due time. Engineering, documentation and investment planning was carried out exactly in the same way as if it had been carried out by SKF in order to prepare for the set up of a new automobile company. Assar most certainly had the full support from the managing director of SKF, Mr. Björn Prytz, at that time, as long as his 'private' project did not interfere with his work as sales manager for SKF. The first ten pre-series vehicles, model ÖV 4, were designed and assembled in Stockholm at AB Galco under the supervision of Gustav Larson, at that time still having his other work at AB Galco to attend to. A "design-office", often called "Volvo's first design-office", was established in one room of Gustav Larson's private apartment at Rådmansgatan 59 in Stockholm. The design work started in the autumn of 1924 and a number of engineers were involved, among them engineer Jan G. Smith, that had returned from America in 1924, and later engineer Henry