Volvo Penta V-8 Engine History
Volvo Penta engines can trace their lineage back to the beginning of the 20th century, when a Swedish engineer designed an engine to be used in his company's foundry. By the middle of the century, automaker Volvo had acquired the engine manufacturer and was looking for ways to bring unprecedented power to its cars. Thus, the Volvo Penta V-8 was born.
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Origins
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In 1907, Swedish company Skofde Gjuteri och Mekaniska Verkstad produced its B1 engine, a kerosene-driven powerplant designed by Edvard Hubendick to be tested in the company's ironworks. The test engine was a success, and it went into commercial production. The new product was given the name Penta, which is Greek for "five," because there were five men in attendance at the meeting during which the design was introduced. Customers for the new engine included boat builders, fire brigades and the army. In 1919, the company was renamed Pentaverken.
Volvo
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Automobile manufacturer Volvo ordered its first Penta engines in 1925, and the resulting 28-horsepower DA engines were delivered by Pentaverken to Volvo two years later. The DA engines were followed by DB and EB models. By 1930, Volvo was one of Pentaverken's biggest customers, and the automaker began to acquire a financial interest in the engine manufacturer. In 1935, Volvo took complete control of Pentaverken and renamed it Volvo Pentaverken. During World War II, Volvo was distracted by war production, but the post-war years began a period of intense product development for Penta.
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B36 Engine
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In 1950, engineer Jan Wilsgaard designed a car to replace the PV 444, Volvo's small four-cylinder model that had been introduced in 1944. The new car, called the Philip, was powered by a 3.6-liter V-8 that produced 120 horsepower. The Philip performed poorly, however, and the project was cancelled after only one prototype was built. The V-8 engine, called the B36, was used instead in marine applications and in the Snabbe light truck. Further development of the V-8 engine for automobile applications soon was abandoned in favor of a new in-line six-cylinder engine, the B30.
XC90 V-8
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Penta continued to produce V-8 engines for marine and industrial use, but Volvo would not use a V-8 in any of its automobiles until 2005, when the XC90 crossover SUV was offered with a 315-horsepower V-8 engine as an option. The power rating of the XC90's V-8 was downgraded to 311 horsepower in 2011, but reviewers at Edmunds claim the V-8 still provides significant improvements in performance over the engine in the six-cylinder XC90.
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