Jan G. Smith

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Jan Gustav Salomon Smith, known as Jan G. Smith, was a Swedish engineer born on 19 June 1895 in Stockholm and who died on 30 April 1966 in Stockholm. He earned an M.Sc. from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. After several years in the American car industry, he returned to Sweden in 1924 and joined Gustav Larson’s team to design Volvo’s first car, the ÖV 4. He worked in a temporary design office in Larson’s private flat in Stockholm for about a year. Many of his original drawings for the Volvo ÖV4, including the gearbox and main chassis components, and technical papers he collected in America are now in the archive of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm. After the Volvo project, he worked for ASEA in Västerås and later in Stockholm. Jan G. Smith was replaced in the Volvo project by engineer Henry Westerberg, who stayed with Volvo as a designer until 1980. In 1929, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) awarded him and Gustav Larson a gold medal for their contribution to Sweden’s automobile industry.