TASK 1 In 1924, Assar Gabrielsson, a sales manager and Gustav Larson, an engineer, had the idea to build cars that people could drive on Sweden’s rough roads and during Sweden’s severe winters. Three years later, the first Volvo car was manufactured. This Swedish company quickly became a well-known producer of cars and commercial vehicles, including buses, trucks and heavy construction machinery. By 1945 Volvo had become well-known outside Sweden, but they were too expensive for most people. 54 years later, in 1999, Volvo sold the car manufacturing part of its company to Ford Motor Company, America, for $6.45 billion. Ford thought it would make a big profit from this deal, but it did not. So only 11 years later it sold Volvo Cars to the Chinese motor manufacturer, Geely Automobile. For Volvo, manufacturing cars in China seemed essential as it wanted to increase its global yearly sales to 800,000 cars by 2020. However, under China’s regulations, foreign car manufacturers can only produce cars in China when the company is jointly owned and run by a Chinese company. Thus the deal was made with Geely. When and where was the first Volvo car manufactured?