After a somewhat fumbling start the serious coachbuilding began in 1923 in the former brickworks and the tar producing factory in Valbo outside Gävle, Sweden. When World War II began in 1939 there were about 80 employees with the founders son Gunnar Åhlénius in the managerial post. Customers were the swedish army, the swedish Mail authority, the department for tele communications and the electricity power company Vattenfall. After the ending of World War II the activity prospered following the growing need for vehicles. In the beginning of the 50:s the production was put on conveyor belt. At this state 1 1/2 cars were produced per shift. The commercial advirtising for the van built on the PV 445 chassis said: "Van for workdays - estate wagon for sundays." The picture on the left shows a test estate wagon that the company had made where one side had windows and the other side were all metal.

In 1960 figures according to the production from the start in 1923 were presented. 10 000 vehicles overall, of wich 4 000 were vans, firetrucks, ambulances and other larger units. After some 40 years of activities the company went in to liquidation. With new owners the company AB Gävle Motorfabrik was started in 1962. In 1985 the company had 25 employees and an annual turnower presenting 6 million swedish kronor. The production in big followed the former company structure in the old localities. Now there were cars produced for the swedish Television network, prisoner transporting vans and vehicles for car shows.

Information about Valbo karosserifabrik is fetched from the book Motormän i Gävleborg written by Allan Synnemark and published by Winbergs in 1985. The book has ISBN nr. 91 970445-8-x. A big thanks to Jan Carlsson who gave the tip about the book.

Published 2001-11-22