most of his private investments for the prototype cars. The contract was signed by Björn Prytz, managing director of SKF and Gabrielsson. Gustaf Larsson finally got paid for the initial engineering work with the ÖV4 according to the 'private' contract he and Gabrielsson had signed on 16 December 1925. That 1925 contract had stated that the automobile project may be sold to any company that would be interested, but they hoped that SKF would be the company to first offer. Gustav Larson was appointed vice president and technical manager on 1 January 1927, and left his employment at AB Galco in Stockholm. First production Volvo On 14 April 1927, at about 10 p.m., the first series production model, the ÖV 4, left the newly established factory on Hisingen in Gothenburg. The ten prototype cars that had been assembled in Stockholm were never sold, except for one that was sold to Volvo's photographer Sven Sjöstedt and was later donated to the Volvo Industrial Museum around 1930. However it was used as transportation vehicles within the manufacturing plant and as 'test benches' for new developed components during the first years. Economic problems The new company did not show any profit for the first couple of years and SKF invested more money to keep the company running. In 1928 the production of trucks began with the basic chassis components from ÖV4. The production of trucks was on a small scale, but the concept was successful from start. However, in late 1929 SKF nearly sold the company to Charles Nash, president of Nash Motors in the United States. Björn Prytz and Gabrielsson managed to convince the SKF board to call the deal off, just one day before Charles Nash arrived by boat in Gothenburg. At the end of 1930 AB Volvo showed a small profit for the first time. In 1935 SKF came to the conclusion that Volvo now was ready to stand on its own feet. Volvo was introduced on the Stockholm stock exchange and SKF sold most of its shares. SKF could now concentrate on their core business, development and manufacturing of bearings, and still are, more than 100 years after the company was founded in 1907. Sales success In 1941, the 50,000th Volvo car was delivered. It took ten years to produce the first 25,000 cars but only four years for the next 25,000 cars. In 1944-45, just after the end