Our cars.
The rebuilded "selfpropelling" carriage from 1897. It is possible to drive.
The first Swedish car was designed and built at Surahammar in the county of Västmanland in central Sweden. This was in 1897, and the creator´s name was Gustaf Eriksson, a 37 year old engineer emplyed at the Surahammars Bruks AB. After some persuasion he had succeded in getting permission from the management to build a "self-propelling" carriage on trail. It was provided with an internal combustion engine that Eriksson had designed himself, and ran on paraffin (kerosene) since he considered petrol too dangerous. However, a test run in April the following year, with Eriksson himself at the "wheel" and three courageous Surahammars Bruk employers as passengers, was not succesful. After the engine had stalled several times, necessitating repeated push-starts, a mill wall happened to get in the way and the car was wrecked.
However, Eriksson was not discouraged. He went on building cars - now fitted with petrol engines. Subsequently he was transferred to a subsidiary of Surahammars Bruk, Vagnaktiebolaget in Södertälje (VABIS), where series production of cars, lorries and later on buses commenced under his eye. The manufacturing of private cars vas discontinued in 1924, whereas the lorry and bus plant developed into one of the foremost in the world: from 1911 under the companyname of Scania-Vabis, and from 1969 Saab-Scania.
Erikssons second car has been preserved, and nowadays it is one of the most treasured items in the Technical Museum in Stockholm.
We also have an VABIS from 1903 built in Södertälje. It is car number seven from a series of seven. The six first cars was built for driving on railways, the one at the museum was the only one with tyres for driving at the roads.
VABIS 1903
