Year and place: 1891-1911 Södertälje. (1911 joined with Scania to Scania-Vabis AB. In 1969 Scania-Vabis and Saab merged to Saab-Scania.)
In the late 1870s Gustaf Eriksson, while studying at a technical school, got interested in the selfpropelled vehicles that began appearing on the continent. While working on different ironworks and sawmills, he made drawings of engines on his time off. He was convinced that these cars should use paraffin instead of petrol. Paraffin was not as inflammable, was sold at every shop and cheaper than petrol.
When working as supervisor at Surahammars Bruk he got the permission to make a prototype of a self-propelled wagon. In August 1897 his first engine started. It didn't take long until it stopped, but the workers had heard the first swedish combustion engine. The first wagon, the first automobile in Sweden, was test driven in 1897.
A
Even if there were several eyewitnesses, what really happened during and between the first trial trips with the A car is unsure regarding engine versions and "when what happened". But this may be what happened at the first trial trip: Eriksson was forbidden to make the trip within the factory area, so the car was pushed outside the gates. The car was pushed to start, and the engine started with some loud bangs, and women and children ran away. After 150 metres the engine stopped, handed wrongly. Pushed to start again, it went a bit longer until it collided with a millhouse. This first version had no brakes ...
Eriksson wanted Surahammars Bruk to start producing cars, but the owners decided that the subsidiary Vagnfabriks-Aktiebolaget i Södertelge (1906 renamed Vabis) was more fit for this production. That company already produced horse carriages and railway-cars.
B, C and D
Eriksson then began working at the subsidiary. The next version, the B car, was the A car rebuilt. It was finished in 1899, but didn't work as well as they had hoped. Among its features was a transmission construction that gave the car innumerable variations of gearing. A way to avoid the hard-used gearboxes of the time.
The C car, finished in October 1901, was the B car rebuilt. Eriksson still used a paraffin engine, which resulted in some unnecessary complicated functions.
The D car was built around 1901-02. Again it consisted largely of the earlier model, but this time the changes was not so extensive. The following years it was used as a test car, among others they equipped it with runners for winter use. The last version of the D car is displayed at Tekniska Museet in Stockholm. (A replica is displayed at the motorcycle museum in Surahammar, and one in the Scania museum in Södertälje.)
Erikssons methods and unwillingness to accept other solutions to technical problems is probably the major cause to the fact that other swedish car makers had produced cars for several years when the first Vabis left the production line. (Eriksson quit working for Vabis in 1910, but continued working with engines. Among the results was a suction carburator that was patented wherever it was applied for, also in the U.S.A. in 1922.)
Trucks and cars
The first Vabis truck came in 1902. It could carry 1,5 (metric) tons. At Swedens first international car exhibition it got much attention (but there were also another swedish truck, a Scania). The Vabis was used in Stockholm from the autumn of 1903.
The first fully functional private car came in 1903, but only one was built. According to one source it was the last in a test serie of seven vehicles, of which the first six were made for use on railway tracks. It was shown at the "Exposition Internationale de l'Automobile, du Cycle et de Sport" in Paris the same year. In 1904 the car took part in Swedens first car race.
It wasn't until 1906 the next Vabis cars were shown. It was two cars, one with two seats and "a spare seat" for two more persons - and the other car had the driver seat at the front with a vertical steering rod, and behind it two seats for passengers. The car was covered with a flat roof on high posts. It was called a Cab Model. The two cars were built on the same chassi model and used the same engine model, the first in a planned series of cars - from small cars to light trucks - with identical chassis and engines.
However there were not any more Vabis cars built that year. (And the Cab Model was burnt in 1921, believed to be an unsuccessful early experimental car of Eriksson.) In 1907 a larger car, with a 20-24 horsepower engine, was built. According to several sources. But there is no documentation left. Was the car built?
More cars
In December 1908 a 4-seated car was delivered to the Electrical company of Stockholm. Cab drivers got interested in the car, and at mid 1909 a broschure was printed presenting the various Vabis models.
Between 1897 and 1910 about 30 Vabis private cars were built, and about 30 trucks. Only a few of them are preserved.
The cars were built with various constructions, and various engines. There were about 8 engine models of various sizes, among them a V2 engine. This can be one reason to the bad economy in Vabis car production.
Vabis was still dominated by manufacturing of railway-cars, but the demand was decreasing. The car production was not profitable, and the owners made an investigation of the company. In the autumn of 1910 Scania suggested a joining of the companies, and Scania-Vabis was founded in 1911.
Other konditori100 texts:
To Scania who with Vabis in 1911 became Scania-Vabis AB.
To Scania-Vabis.
2004-01-18. www.konditori100.se. Text/pictures: Arne Granfoss ©. Prod: AG Informice