Volvo Halifax Assembly

The Volvo Canada Ltd.. / Ltée. is a Canadian subsidiary of Volvo AB Personvagnar, was established on 21 July 1959 as a local trading company. Around 750 employees currently work for the company, which was also active as an automobile manufacturer for the North American market from 1963 to 1998. The corporate headquarters is located in the metropolis of Toronto Ontario.

Volvo also won in the North American countries at the beginning of the sixties notoriety As with most European car brands. The vehicles of the brand among customers were well received. Promoted this reputation have primarily entails participation in racing events as well as the sales of station wagons and sporty convertibles, which were very popular with the American clientele and on the contrary to the other vehicles European brands American tastes corresponded most closely. These were the PV544, PV545, as well as of the Amazon, followed by the P1800 in 1961.

With a growing number of orders an assembly plant already had to be built a few years after the founding of the Canadian subsidiary. The choice fell on the location of Dartmouth, a suburb of the city of Halifax in the Province of Nova Scotia. The opening speech on June 11 1963 said Prince Bertil of Sweden Carl Gustaf Oskar Eugén. Previously, the site was owned by a company in the sugar industry. Shortly before the opening of the plant, the Intergovernmental Agreement Canada - United States Automotive Products Agreement between the United States and Canada, it was decided, among which the import duties accounted for, which also one of the main reasons was to establish a local assembly plant there.

The first assembled in Canada model was based on the Amazon sister model called the Canadian GT. The model in two body versions, including the coupe in the equipment package 122 S and 123 GT as the addition was built notchback sedan exclusively in the equipment variants 112 S. Furthermore, was the model as a combination of vehicles to choose from, which here only in the equipment package 122 S rolled off the assembly line. On request, there was the 122 S but also with the stronger engine of the type B18. These units are already on the radiator grille, which specifies the corresponding logo. The following year, then finally was added and the PV544, which stood in the same engines to choose. In model year 1966 vehicles have been assembled in Dartmouth assembly plant in about 3700.

Since the terrain of the growing number of orders was no longer enough, the assembly lines had to be relocated into a larger hall. So you chose as the new location a 30,000 square foot premises in Clayton Park. Here were a year now even up to 8,000 CKD kits to be assembled that have been delivered directly from Sweden. As a result of the move they were forced to remove the PV544 without successors from the model program. A year later, now also followed the Canadian GT. He was succeeded the 140 series to.

1974 there was an expansion of the plant, so Volvo could assemble 12,000 units for the North American market in Halifax annually. In 1974, the obsolete 140 series was replaced by the more modern 240 series, which have undergone several facelifts in almost ten years of construction. Here we concentrated mainly on the standards and contemporary Stilelemte how this was to be found in most other competing models. This trend was then continued by Volvo from 1984, the result of model 740. Only with the 940 was maintained for the European line back in and had almost identical specifications. A rare North American model of Volvo is the 850, which has been assembled here in Canada in only a very small number of items. The successor whose joined in 1997 at the notchback sedan S70 and the V70 combi identical, which were built for a short time along with the 940er.

Although the assembly plant was very successful, so the theme Globalisation have been a major topic under the direction of Ford Motor Company. Similarly, the North American Free Trade Agreement provided for a restructuring of the Konzernes. The resulting dispute with the workers went among others, the Canadian Auto Workers Union and tried to strike in September 1998 to negotiate new salaries for the workforce. But you could not agree, so that Volvo decided to close its plant. The last vehicle rolled off the assembly line on 18 December 1998. Since then, the assembly plant Bayer's Lake is shut down. 225 workers will then have lost their jobs.

Model Overview

Volvo Canadian GT Sedan 1963-1967

Volvo Canadian GT Station Wagon 1963-1967

Volvo PV544 1964-1966

Volvo 142 1967-1975

Volvo 144 1967-1975

Volvo 145 1967-1975

Volvo 240 Flak 1975-1984

Volvo 240 Sedan 1975-1984

Volvo 240 Wagon 1975-1984

Volvo 242 1975-1984

Volvo 244 1975-1984

Volvo 245 1975-1984

Volvo 740 Sedan 1984-1993

Volvo 740 Wagon 1984-1993

Volvo 940 Sedan 1991-1998

Volvo 940 Wagon 1991-1998

Volvo 850 Sedan 1992-1997

Volvo 850 Wagon 1992-1997

Volvo S70 1997-1998

Volvo V70 1997-1998