When the Prime Minister
had a PV

English translation of the story "När statsministern åkte PV" in the PV-Entusisten # 2 1999.

By Dan Jansson

It is in the late summer of 1950. Volvo recently released the new model PV 444 Special. Now all PV 444 were no longer only black with green and yellow interior. The Special model was painted in a blue-gray tint that was called "dove gray" and the interior was red and gray. Only 500 Specials were produced.
One of those cars was sold to the Swedish Prime Minister Mr. Tage Erlander,or rather to his wife Aina.
The Volvo magazine "Ratten" (The Steering Wheel) published a picture that was taken outside the Volvo dealer Motoraktiebolaget in Karlstad when the family picked up their new car.

The fact that the Swedish Prime Minister traveled in a Volvo PV was maybe not so strange at that time. Even if the PV was not a very exclusive car it was far from everyone's possession.
Sven Erlander recalls that while his father was the Prime Minister, he did not have an official car. His normal means of transportation was the tram.
In his memoirs Tage Erlander writes that "I was so short of time that I had to take a taxi to a meeting".
This gives an image of how different the circumstances were for the politicians then compared to now.
"Cars were expensive", says Sven Erlander. "Very few people had a car at that time. And there were many cars that were much more expensive than the PV."
"Of course there was some surprise about the fact that the prime minister traveled in such a relatively cheap car with his wife as driver."
Tage Erlander himself did not have a driver´s licence.
"To us it was natural to have a Swedish automobile - even if it meant that limited space for Tage´s long legs."
After the purchase of the PV in 1950 (this was the first car in the family) every morning Aina took her husband to the government office before she herself continued to the school in southern Stockholm where she worked as a teacher.
The car made life much easier.
Sven Erlander was 16 years old and his brother 13 years in 1950. They became experts in maneuvering on the first gear between the pine threes on their grandmothers back yard in Ransäter. Not to mention the skill they had in reversing. However they were never allowed to drive outside the house yard.
"The vacuum powered windshield wipers had individual controls. They could be very fast, except when you pressed the accelerator pedal. Then the low pressure in the carburetor disappeared and the wipers stopped. This was a very annoying behavior during takeovers."
"I spent many hours through the years with car care. Washing, waxing, adjusting the spark plugs, shifting lamps in the direction indicators being arms that were lifted before taking a turn."
The hardest job was to shift the completely rusted muffler after a number of years Sven Erlander concludes.
The family had the car until 1957 when it was was traded with the Volvo dealer Ernst Nilson AB on the Hälsingegatan in Stockholm.
It was sold later the same autumn to Dalarna (Dalecarlia county) where it remained until it was demolished in Evertsberg 1964.
The remains of the car are said to be left somewhere in the forest in Dalarna but it is probably not a realistic project to try to restore it.

Tage Erlander in Detroit

In 1952 Tage Erlander visited the US. One of the places he visited was the big Chrysler factory in Detroit.
The visit was notified by Swedish magazine Teknikens Värld in an article with a picture showing the Prime Minister behind the wheel of at brand new Chrysler just about to leave the assembly line.
In the text it said that Tage Erlander himself was a car owner, this being a fact not completely correct. That he was seen behind the windshield of the family's Volvo PV 444 was indeed correct, but he was always seated in the right hand seat.
The fact that the Prime Minister did not have a driver's license was not mentioned in the article. Maybe the reporter who wrote the article was not aware of the fact. Or was it maybe a bit sensitive so the press avoided mentioning it?

Original story by Dan Jansson,

Translation by Dan Jansson
Mark Hershoren for assistance)