Hello
When I found this website I thought it would be interesting to see what people in the US (and other places) write about this Swedish brand. I searched the site and found only a few posts and people wrote that they were looking for information, but didn't get much in reply.
So I decided to create this thread on my own to help anyone interested in it (or to spark some interest!) to get started albeit they don't know the Swedish language.
Short history about the companies involved, as usual with this kind of companies they did a lot of other products apart from farm tractors.
[list:48ab2a9e97][*:48ab2a9e97]1832 - Johan Theofron Munktell (1805-1887) starts a workshop in Eskilstuna, Sweden.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1844 - Jean Bolinder (1813-1899) and his brother Carl Gerhard (1818-1892) starts a workshop and foundry in Stockholm.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1913 - Munktells produces its first farm tractor, the "30 - 40 hk".
[*:48ab2a9e97]1927 - Volvo is founded.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1932 - Bolinders and Munktells are merged to form Bolinder-Munktell.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1943 - Volvo and Bolinder-Munktell starts cooperating building farm tractors.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1950 - A Swedish bank which is the major stockholder of BM sells its share to Volvo where it became a subsidiary. But first International Harvester was thought to become the buyer, but (luckily!) it remained Swedish. The name became BM-Volvo. Many models are available in green as Bolinder-Munktell or red as Volvo until 1960 when they all became red.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1972 - Name changed to Volvo BM.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1979 - Volvo BM starts a joint venture with Finish tractor manufacture Valmet to produce "The Nordic Tractor" in a new company, 50-50 owned, called SCANTRAC.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1982 - The new "Volvo BM Valmet" tractors are presented, the 05-series (505, 605, 705 and 805) which were totally new designed tractors.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1985 - Volvo sold the shares in SCANTRAC to Valmet and with this year we leave the scope of this website.
[/list:u:48ab2a9e97]
[b:48ab2a9e97][u:48ab2a9e97]Links[/u:48ab2a9e97][/b:48ab2a9e97]
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.volvo.com/constructioneq...AboutUs/history/products/tractors/history.htm[/b:48ab2a9e97]
Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE) history page with short descriptions of nearly every model and on each page you can find "Download Specifications" with brochures as PDF-files, on some models available in English version also.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.bmsidan.se/[/b:48ab2a9e97] - The big fan-site for BM tractors which also have an English section. The entire site is [i:48ab2a9e97]not[/i:48ab2a9e97] translated and unfortunately not all tractor models have their own page.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.youtube.com/bmsidan[/b:48ab2a9e97] - Videos managed by bmsidan.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.external_link/farm-tractors/tractor-brands/volvo/volvo-tractors.html[/b:48ab2a9e97]
Now I've provided some info to you all, maybe there already are some BM fans here that want to share their thoughts about these tractors?
My parents and me have a BM-Volvo 230 Victor from 1961 (last year, the updated version) with front loader. It is not restored to perfect/good condition but works fairly well. It has a 31 hk (metric horsepower used in Sweden) 2 cylinder diesel engine, renowned for it's low fuel consumption and high "pulling power" (correct English term?), if the tractor gets a heavy load the the engine rpm just drops but still manage, no need to shift to lower gear. Just listen to the sound of the engine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0l3RCtZeVs&NR=1 (not me or our tractor).
Feel free to ask anything, I'm not a die-hard fan but as I'm Swede I can probably dig up answers about these tractors more easily.
When I found this website I thought it would be interesting to see what people in the US (and other places) write about this Swedish brand. I searched the site and found only a few posts and people wrote that they were looking for information, but didn't get much in reply.
So I decided to create this thread on my own to help anyone interested in it (or to spark some interest!) to get started albeit they don't know the Swedish language.
Short history about the companies involved, as usual with this kind of companies they did a lot of other products apart from farm tractors.
[list:48ab2a9e97][*:48ab2a9e97]1832 - Johan Theofron Munktell (1805-1887) starts a workshop in Eskilstuna, Sweden.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1844 - Jean Bolinder (1813-1899) and his brother Carl Gerhard (1818-1892) starts a workshop and foundry in Stockholm.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1913 - Munktells produces its first farm tractor, the "30 - 40 hk".
[*:48ab2a9e97]1927 - Volvo is founded.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1932 - Bolinders and Munktells are merged to form Bolinder-Munktell.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1943 - Volvo and Bolinder-Munktell starts cooperating building farm tractors.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1950 - A Swedish bank which is the major stockholder of BM sells its share to Volvo where it became a subsidiary. But first International Harvester was thought to become the buyer, but (luckily!) it remained Swedish. The name became BM-Volvo. Many models are available in green as Bolinder-Munktell or red as Volvo until 1960 when they all became red.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1972 - Name changed to Volvo BM.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1979 - Volvo BM starts a joint venture with Finish tractor manufacture Valmet to produce "The Nordic Tractor" in a new company, 50-50 owned, called SCANTRAC.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1982 - The new "Volvo BM Valmet" tractors are presented, the 05-series (505, 605, 705 and 805) which were totally new designed tractors.
[*:48ab2a9e97]1985 - Volvo sold the shares in SCANTRAC to Valmet and with this year we leave the scope of this website.
[/list:u:48ab2a9e97]
[b:48ab2a9e97][u:48ab2a9e97]Links[/u:48ab2a9e97][/b:48ab2a9e97]
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.volvo.com/constructioneq...AboutUs/history/products/tractors/history.htm[/b:48ab2a9e97]
Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE) history page with short descriptions of nearly every model and on each page you can find "Download Specifications" with brochures as PDF-files, on some models available in English version also.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.bmsidan.se/[/b:48ab2a9e97] - The big fan-site for BM tractors which also have an English section. The entire site is [i:48ab2a9e97]not[/i:48ab2a9e97] translated and unfortunately not all tractor models have their own page.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.youtube.com/bmsidan[/b:48ab2a9e97] - Videos managed by bmsidan.
[b:48ab2a9e97]http://www.external_link/farm-tractors/tractor-brands/volvo/volvo-tractors.html[/b:48ab2a9e97]
Now I've provided some info to you all, maybe there already are some BM fans here that want to share their thoughts about these tractors?
My parents and me have a BM-Volvo 230 Victor from 1961 (last year, the updated version) with front loader. It is not restored to perfect/good condition but works fairly well. It has a 31 hk (metric horsepower used in Sweden) 2 cylinder diesel engine, renowned for it's low fuel consumption and high "pulling power" (correct English term?), if the tractor gets a heavy load the the engine rpm just drops but still manage, no need to shift to lower gear. Just listen to the sound of the engine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0l3RCtZeVs&NR=1 (not me or our tractor).
Feel free to ask anything, I'm not a die-hard fan but as I'm Swede I can probably dig up answers about these tractors more easily.