70 year stories

Did you know that.....Autoliv started up manufacturing in Mexico in the early 1990s?

Together with the Japanese company NSK, Autoliv formed a joint venture – NSK-Autoliv – which built a factory in Tijuana.

Production started in September 1991 and was focused on motorized automotive seatbelts for the American market. 

Image: The factory in Tijuana. Picure taken 2013. Photographer unknown.

Did you know that.....Electrolux was well on its way to selling Autoliv to the large American corporation AlliedSignal?

This was after the success of Eurobag in the early 1990s. Autoliv management didn’t find the deal particularly attractive, though, and it never went through.

Image: Inside the Electrolux/Autoliv/Klippan facility in 1990. Picture taken from the Electrolux Autoliv magazine.

Did you know that.....Autoliv developed its very own type of airbag in the early 1990s?

It was called the Eurobag, and was a smaller airbag than the American version, which was designed to be used along with a seatbelt – the standard in Europe.

Key components of the Eurobag included the Euroflator and a revolutionary fully woven cushion. Both of these innovations were developed by Autoliv subsidiaries.

Eurobag led to a dramatic increase in Autoliv’s airbag sales within just a couple of years.

Image: Electrolux-Autoliv "Eurobag passenger module" - 1993; 60 liter passenger airbag

Did you know that.....Autoliv established a test center in Dachau, Germany in 1990?

This was an important request from BMW. The German master engineer Dieter Schaper, who had previously worked at both Daimler and Opel, was affiliated with this test center.

Schaper later developed a special type of side airbag, the “weisswurst.”

Image: Volvo Eurobag package from 1987. Photographer unknown.

Did you know that.....the great European expansion began at the start of the 1980s?

Autoliv gradually became the leading supplier in Europe, capturing nearly half of the market.

Acquisitions included companies in Spain, Italy, Finland and England.

The company also tried to make acquisitions in the US but lost in bidding wars with competitors.

Image: The structure of the company, 1987.

Did you know that.....Autoliv set up an Advisory Board in 1984?

The Board still exists today. Members of the Advisory Board included the world-renown surgeon and professor of traffic safety Bertil Aldman, as well as other Swedish and foreign experts and researchers in traffic safety, automotive engineering and biomechanics (i.e., what forces the human body can withstand).

Image: The Advisory Board, 1999.

Did you know that.....Gunnar Bark, the man behind Autoliv’s major advancements in the 1980s and 1990s, started his career as a research engineer at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute?

He later served no less than three terms as President and CEO of Autoliv.

Image: Gunnar Bark in 1997, the year of the merger between Autoliv and Morton ASP.

Did you know that.....it was only after acquiring competitor Evert Larsson Industri in 1979 that Autoliv managed to gain a foothold with the Swedish vehicle manufacturer Volvo?

Before this, Autoliv’s customers were foreign carmakers.

Image: This is how Volvos’s own V-type safety belt looked like in 1959.

Did you know that.....Autoliv grew quickly in the late 1970s through acquisitions?

Revenue increased by over 60 percent in six years.

One of these acquisitions was of the French company AMCA, which increased Autoliv’s market share on the French market from 10 to 16 percent.

Image: Making steering wheels in a French facility, ca 1970’s. Photographer unknown.

Did you know that.....in a strategic plan for 1972, Gränges expressed the ambition to become a leading and turnkey manufacturer of automatic belts in Scandinavia, with a significant position in England and West Germany?

The strategy failed, however, and instead, Grängess acquired the belt manufacturer Autoliv in Vårgårda in 1975 in order to become a real seatbelt company and full-service supplier.

5000 retractors, the so-called Essem roll, were already being delivered to the company, which represented 5 percent of the entire production.

Image: Inside the facilities of Autolivs own seatbelt production, 1975 – 1976.