The company was set up by Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larsson, both of whom worked for bearings manufacturer SKF.

The company bankrolled the early days of Volvo, which is why it took its name from the Latin for ‘I roll’. Now owned by Chinese company Geely, Volvo has gone from being a little bit left-field to a serious contender in the premium car arena. And just this week it's unveiled surely its most important model in years - the XC40 Recharge - the company's first purely electric powered model. It will have a single-charge range of 248 miles, and will go on sale in most markets in 2020. Time, then, to see how the model fits into the pantheon of Volvo's greatest cars.

Let’s see how the Volvo story began, and how its recent success occurred: