Swedish Soft Skins

[Bill Murray]

Not much gets published on Swedish vehicles and equipment.

I worked for Volvo and Saab-Scania over a 25 year period of time in the US, Sweden, Peru and Canada and picked up quite a lot of photos and books of vehicles from the Interwar period up to the early 1990s.

I will start posting here photos out of that collection so they will not be lost to the historians such as yourselves. I am just turning 67 years old and need to get these out to you before the eyes or the mind starts to get funny
Bill

[Bill Murray]

Next batch. Sorry, the last is a postwar shot of a Danish Volvo even though it is a WW II era vehicle.
Bill

[Bill Murray]

Last batch for today.
Bill

[Gaijinaho]

Interesting pics! thanks for posting them, I've not seen any of these before. Those are some good lucking vehicles. I might try a bit of kit bashing at some time in the future for fun with these vehicles. If you have anymore put them up please! Or of any other Sweedish military equipment.
later, Bill

[Bill Murray]

Scanned a couple more.
Bill

[The Edge]

Nice photos! Thanks for sharing them with us.

How about some basic info? (for less-known models, at least)

[Bill Murray]

Hi Edge:
Sorry, I got in a hurry and just posted the bare information.Here as follows is a better description. All in this first group are Volvos.

1. TLV M/42 Personnel truck
2. TPV M/43 Radio Car. Roughly based on pre war taxi chassis.
3. HBT M/43 Half Track Artillery Tractor. May be based on design of Demag D7 which Sweden also had.
4. LV102 Cargo Truck used by Danish army after WWII
5. TVC M/42 Artillery Tractor
6. TPV M/43 Personnel/Staff Car. As for #2.
7. LV 110 Truck Tractor
8. LV110 Cargo w/radio trailer
9. LV Cargo Truck
10. LV 120 Cargo Truck w/Gengas apparatus
11. LV142 Cargo Truck used by Danish army after WWII
12. TVB M/40 Artillery Tractor.

I must also credit Sven Bengtson of Goteborg Sweden for some of these photos that we exchanged in the 1970's. I have long ago lost contact with Sven but if he sees this, Thanks.
Bill

[nuyt]

thanks Bill, great pictures!

[map358]

Data for the ones that I recognize. (The rest are probably civilian models.)

1. Terrängbil m/42 VP (Volvo TLV-VP)
4x4, personnel carrier, 17 troops
Curb-w 5000kg, Max-w 8000kg
Engine: Volvo FCT, 6-cyl 90hp

2 and 6. Radioterrängpersonbil m/43 (Volvo TPV)
4x4, command vehicle, radio 25W m/39, 6 troops
Curb-w 2340kg, Max-w 2800kg
Engine: Volvo EC, 6-cyl 86hp

3. Artilleritraktor m/43 (Volvo HBT)
Halftrack, artillery tractor, 9 troops
Curb-w 4980kg, Max-w 6780kg
Engine: Volvo FCT, 6-cyl, 90hp

5. Terrängdragbil m/42 (Volvo TVC)
6x6, artillery tractor, 8 troops
Curb-w 9900kg, Max-w 14000kg
Engine: Volvo FBT, 6-cyl 140hp

12. Terrängdragbil m/40 (Volvo TVB)
6x4, artillery tractor, 6 troops
Curb-w 6825kg, Max-w 11500kg
Engine: Volvo FBT, 6-cyl 140hp

Engines:
Volvo EC, 6-cyl, 3.7 lit, SV, petrol, 86hp
Volvo FCT, 6-cyl, 4.4 lit, OHV, petrol, dry-sump, 90hp
Volvo FBT, 6-cyl, 7.6 lit, OHV, petrol, dry-sump, 140hp

[map358]

Took a second look at your very nice pictures. For what it's worth, here's my opinion:

4. Might well be a LV102 (the LV101 looks about the same).
Commercial truck
Max-w 3800kg
Engine: Volvo EC, 86hp

7. I would say that it's a LV103
Military light semi trailer with gengas apparatus type Volvo
Max-w 5500kg
Engine: Volvo ECG, 50hp

8. Might be a LV110 but I rather belive it's a LV112 (or maybe a LV111).
Commercial truck
Max-w 5000kg
Engine: Volvo EC, 86hp

9. Maybe a LV110
Commercial truck
Max-w 4800kg
Engine: Volvo EC, 86hp

10. It might be a LV120, but it's difficult to tell the LV120, LV125 and LV130 apart and since the truck is fitted with a wood gas generator it ought to be of the LV125 or LV130 series rather than of the LV120.
Commercial truck with gengas apparatus type Svedlund
Max-w between 6600 and 7800kg
Engine: Volvo FCG, 60hp

11. Terrängbil m/42 - Marinen (Volvo TLV-142 M)
Military 4x4 truck for the Coast Artillery
(Note the flat fenders compared to #1 and #10.)
Curb-w 4400kg, Max-w 8300kg
Engine: Volvo FET, 105hp

Engines:
Volvo ECG, 6-cyl, 3.7 lit, SV, wood gas, 50hp
Volvo FCG, 6-cyl, 4.4 lit, OHV, wood gas, 60hp
Volvo FET, 6-cyl, 5.7 lit, OHV, petrol, dry-sump, 105hp

[Bill Murray]

map358:

Your opinions are worth their weight in GOLD!!

For some 50 years, I have collected mostly photographic materiel and to be honest I worried not too much about the exact details, which is not a good thing. I do have a lot of the technical data you supplied a thread above but did not know if our audience wanted that much detail.

Let us collaborate on this thread, in that I can post the photos with the best ID I can do and you can correct what I miss. The important thing is to get these images out to our fellow researchers and not worry about who is the most exact in terms of ID.

It might be of interest to you to see this photo of my Sugga which I imported from Sweden in 1974. It is now sitting on a farm in Connecticut and I have not seen it for many years but I did tour the Baja Peninsula in Mexico several times with it in the 1970's.

As I worked for Swedish companies for 25+ years and lived there for two years, I am reasonably fluent in Swedish. Feel free to PM me or email me so we can develop this little thread into a larger one.

MVH
Bill

[map358]

Bill:
Sounds like a nice idea!
Though I'm not an expert in any way and may be wrong on several counts I think we should give it a try.

So you imported a Sugga in the 1970s - I'm impressed! You must have had the first 4WD Volvo in the States! Whatever did the neighbors say?

[Bill Murray]

Not to bore our neighbors here, but, yes, it was the first but not the last Sugga imported into the US.
Sadly, almost everyone that saw it thought it was a German WWII vehicle and when I tried to explain it was Swedish, they did not believe me.

I imported it to California and then later had it transported to Connecticut on the East Coast. When I moved to Georgia, in the south of the US, I left it to a friend of mine in Connecticut. He was using it as a tractor on his farm.
Bill

[map358]

Except for the TLV (Bill's photo #1) 4WD medium truck, the TVB (Bill's photo #12) and TVC (Bill's photo #5) artillery tractors all other Volvo trucks used by the Swedish Army were basically commercial vehicles.

Volvo Military Vehicles:

As Bill mentioned the TPV (pictures #2 and #6) command vehicle was based on a civilian taxi, but the chassis was from a light truck converted to 4WD.

To meet the Army's demands for a 4WD cargo truck Volvo developed the civilian LV131 (Round Nose) into the TLV131.
The standard military cargo truck was the 'Terrängbil m/42 VL' (Volvo TLV 131D) but there were also the 'Terrängbil m/42 VP' (Volvo TLV-VP) personnel carrier (Bill's photo #1), the reinforced and stronger 'Terrängbil m/42 VLT' (Volvo TLV 141D), which was a civilian LV141 in 4x4, and the 'Terrängbil m/42-Marinen' (Volvo TLV 142 M) for the Marines (Bill's photo #11), which was a LV142 in 4x4 (the Marines had flat front fenders and the Army rounded front fenders). The Volvo-version of the armoured personnel carrier 'VKP' was built on the chassis of the m/42 VLT.

The HBT (picture #3) was, if not a copy of the Demag D7, still heavily influenced by the German half-track. It even used the very same type of tracks.

Already before the war Volvo had started developing an artillery tractor called the TVA. It was based on a foreign concept and Volvo had brought in a Hungarian engineer to design the drive train. It was a 6x4 truck with independent rear axles. Only a couple of prototypes were manufactured.
When the war begun the Swedish army ordered about 150 of the slightly improved Volvo TVB. Inspired by the Czech Skoda 6V, Volvo developed the TVB into the TVC which was a forward control 6x6 truck with independent axles for all six wheels. It had a rather complicated drive train with permanent 6WD and four outgoing drive-shafts from the transfer case.


Volvo Commercial Trucks:

Kortnos (the Shortnose) Light Trucks 1936-40
LV80 series (LV81 through LV86) with the 3.7 lit EC engine
LV90 series (LV93 through LV95) with the 4.1 lit DC engine

Spetsnos (the Sharpnose) Light Trucks 1938-46
(Bill's photos #4, #7, #8 and #9)
LV101 with the 3.7 lit EC engine
LV102 with the 3.7 lit EC engine
LV103 semi trailer with the 3.7 lit EC engine
LV110 series (LV110 through LV112) with the 3.7 lit EC engine

Rundnos (the Roundnose) Medium Trucks 1940-50
(Bill's photo #10)
LV120 series (LV120 through LV123) with the 3.7 lit EC engine
LV125 series (LV125 through LV128) with the 4.4 lit FC engine
LV130 series (LV130 through LV138) with the 4.4 lit FC engine
LV140 series (LV140 through LV148) with the 5.7 lit FE engine

Långnos (the Longnose) Heavy Trucks 1937-50
LV180 series (LV180 through LV183) with the 4.4 lit FC engine
LV190 series (LV190 through LV193) with the 4.4 lit FC engine
LV290 series (LV290 through LV293) with the 6.7 lit FA engine

Before the war some models could be had with the Hesselman engine and during the war most models could be had with a gengas apparatus (wood gas generator).

[map358]

Pictures:
*Volvo TLV
*Volvo TVC
*Volvo HBT, TVB and TVC
*More HBT

Noticed that Volvo actually provides a lot of information about their 1930s and 1940s trucks.

A German language page about WW2 Volvos