What Is the Arrow Symbol in the Volvo Logo?

The ring and arrow is not a pointer. It is the old chemical sign for iron, which Wikipedia identifies as the Greek alchemical symbol, and the same figure doubles as the astrological symbol of Mars and the common sign for male. Volvo's own materials call the logo the iron mark. The reason the company picked it is the part that is not documented.

The explanation repeated most often is that the sign stands for iron and therefore for Swedish iron and steel, and one account says the founders had worked for a Swedish steel and bearings group. That is a reasonable reading, but the sources used for this page only confirm that the sign stands for iron. A claim that it dates back to Roman times is looser still, and nothing consulted supports it.

The name is Latin for "I roll," from the verb volvere. The ball bearing maker SKF registered it as a trademark in the 1910s for a planned line of bearings, a rolling product, but it was not used for that. When SKF sales manager Assar Gabrielsson and engineer Gustaf Larson began work on a Swedish car in 1924, the name was brought back for the car company, whose first series-production car, the ÖV 4, left the Hisingen factory on 14 April 1927.

So the iron sign and the name arrive from the same engineering world. Both are about metal that moves.

The slash across Volvo grilles is a separate branding symbol, and the company lists it alongside the iron mark. Its origin is more down to earth. The ÖV 4 had a square radiator opening with no grille, so the round badge needed something to hold it in the middle, and a bar running corner to corner was the easiest way to do it. Jalopnik's report on this comes from a Volvo employee and notes that few sources discuss it, so treat it as a single-source account.

The bar came and went. It appeared regularly until around the time of the PV444, disappeared, and returned on the 164 in 1968. The 1927 trademark application for the logotype is described as a copy of the entire radiator of the ÖV 4 seen from the front, which is why the bar and the ring show up together on early drawings. One account credits the designer Helmer Mas-Olle with the first badge, but the main reference works consulted do not name a designer.

Volvo's earliest archived logo is a dark blue oval with an orange rim, VOLVO in white capitals and a ribbon reading Gothenburg Sweden. The iron mark appears in the archive by 1930 with speed lines, turns light blue in 1959, becomes a thin blue outline in 1970 and a glossy metallic ring with a blue band in 1999. It was flattened in 2014 and in 2021 became a flat black ring and arrow with VOLVO set in small spaced capitals in the center.

Blue is the color most people picture, but no source consulted explains why Volvo blue was chosen.