Volvo Group Willing to Support Volvo Cars

It’s no secret that Ford Motor Company has been looking to divest itself from Volvo in recent months, and what better way than to sell it back to the Swedish brand’s namesake company, Volvo Group, which sold the car making operations to Dearborn back in 1999.

The Volvo brand name is known for much more than just cars. In a similar fashion to how Rolls-Royce shares its brand with BMW, the former supplying the aviation industry while the latter continues to build motor cars, and Mitsubishi holds everything from major hotel chains to Nikon cameras and some of the world’s most powerful banks, Volvo Group builds marine powertrains, heavy duty diesel engines for industrial use, buses and highway trucks, as well as ball bearings through SKF, and the list goes on. It’s pretty obvious that this other Volvo company stopped wanting to be in the car business when it sold off its namesake brand to Ford in 1999, and according to a recent report from Agence France-Presse (AFP) it still doesn’t want to be in the car business as it has no intention of buying Volvo back from Ford. Just the same, it sees the necessity of protecting the good name it has developed, realizing that if it allows the car operations that share ownership of its famed Volvo logo and trademark, to fall into disarray, its reputation will most surely be affected.

What’s on the table? Volvo is willing to become one of a consortium of owners, sharing the load rather than taking it on fully, and has been said to be amenable to jointly funding the development of new models on a project to project basis.

Unlike Volvo Car’s parent company, and many others in the automotive sector, however, Volvo Group is opposed to any Swedish government assistance, or at least the kind that would have the socially leaning state own any portion of the brand.

“The state knows nothing about the car industry…” Volvo Cars chairman of the board Finn Johnsson told AFP.