Volvo in Halifax: the first Volvo plant outside Sweden
Volvo opened its first assembly plant outside Sweden in a former sugar refinery on the Dartmouth waterfront on 11 June 1963. The plant moved to Pier 9 in Halifax in 1967 and to Bayers Lake in 1987, built more than 300,000 cars, and shut on 18 December 1998.
On the 11th of June 1963 the first Volvo assembly plant anywhere outside Sweden opened in a former sugar refinery on the Dartmouth waterfront. The last screw in the first car was tightened by Prince Bertil of Sweden, with a gold-plated screwdriver.
Why did Volvo build cars in Nova Scotia?
Volvo came for four reasons. Building here got them past the import tariff. Halifax was the closest major North American port to Sweden. Wages were lower, a dollar eighty-six an hour against well over two dollars in Ontario. And the port and the roads were right there.
The Dartmouth shop turned out about fifteen cars a day. In April 1967 the operation moved to Pier 9 in Halifax, a hundred and ninety thousand square feet, and output went past thirty-six a day and twelve thousand cars a year.
What was the Volvo Canadian?
The car they built for this market was the Volvo Canadian, based on the Amazon, a four-door with a red interior. The very first one off the line became the official car of the provincial Minister of Trade and Industry. It was given to the Nova Scotia Museum in 1967, restored by Volvo's own technicians in 1991, and it is at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton today.
In January 1971 the plant launched the Volvo 142E, the first computer-controlled fuel-injected car in North America.
When did the Volvo plant in Halifax close?
A new plant opened at Bayers Lake at the end of 1987. Over the whole thirty-five years the workforce never went much past two hundred people, and they built more than three hundred thousand cars.
Volvo announced the closure on the 9th of September 1998 and the plant shut on the 18th of December. The company said it was no longer viable to build cars for the Canadian market in Halifax as the product line expanded.
Quick facts
- Opened
- 11 June 1963, Dartmouth waterfront
- First car
- Last screw tightened by Prince Bertil of Sweden
- Moved
- April 1967 to Pier 9, Halifax; end of 1987 to Bayers Lake
- Workforce
- Never much past 200 people
- Cars built
- More than 300,000
- Closed
- 18 December 1998
