Welcome to these pages where we will try to tell at least a part of “Swedish manufactured outboard motors” history. Sweden has a long story of qualified technical engineering and mining industry and skilled educated people from companies like: AGA, Alfa Laval, ASEA, Bofors, Bolinders, Electrolux, ESAB, Husqvarna, Facit, Grängesbergsbolaget, SKF, Sandvik and Uddeholm. These facts made it possible to manufacture quality products and also export them. One of the first pictures of an outboard motor we have seen published in Sweden is the “motorised oar” invented by Gabriel Trouche from France and shown to the public in 1904 and for sale in Stockholm the next year. Manufacturing of outboard motors in Sweden started in 1912 and lasted until 1979 when the last motor was made in the Volvo Penta factory in Uppsala. Some famous names besides Archimedes and Penta we will try to follow up are: Ali, Aldell, Crescent, Darax, Delfin, Electrolux, Gyro, Husqvarna, JB Marinoped, MBV, Monark-Crescent, Nymanbolagen, SEM (magnetos), Stefa (magnetos),Trim, Triton and Volvo-Penta. If you have more information, corrections and old pictures etc. let us know in order to make this information better and more complete.
Swedish made outboard motors – part of its history
Sweden is a country with sea on three sides and many thousands of lakes. It has three major archipelagos with thousands of islands in the Stockholm, Gothenburg and Karlskrona area. Local farming and fishing was common and on the islands you must do both to survive in the old days. The first outboard motors imported was Evinrude from USA in 1910 and 500 motors were sold. The local fishermen converted their small wooden boats for rowing and/or sailing to a motor. The one cylinder motor was heavily vibrating and this is bad on a wooden boat. Several small factories made more or less direct copies of Evinrude with names as: Alka, Svalan, Meteor, M.B.V, Standard, Torped, Pilen etc. All these motors were also vibrating and a standardised supply of spareparts was often not available.
On this scene now enters the two brothers Carl Alrik and Oscar Walfrid Hult who 1907 formed the company AB Archimedes in Stockholm. Carl Alrik went to America in 1887 working in machine shops and developed a patent in 1890 for a centrifugal cream separator and later several patents for rotating steam engines and combustion engines. He came back to Sweden in 1890 with a return ticket but he stayed here and continued his separator development. The brothers bought an Evinrude motor in 1911, tested it and and found out that they could make a better and less vibrating motor. The first prospect for “Balansmotorn” was published in 1912 and orders immediately poured in. So everything in Swedish outboard motor history is related to and goes in a straight line back to the two Hult brothers and Archimedes “Balansmotorn”.
Important Dates
1911 The first batch of “Evinrude motors” imported to Sweden.1912 The first “Balansmotorn Archimedes BS” was presented.
1913 “Alka” was the first outboard in Sweden with “Magneto ignition”.
1916 “SEM” in Åmål produced Swedish magnetos.
1919 “Triton” four stroke motor.
1922 “Penta U-2” was presented.
1922 “Ali” wobblepate motor.
1932 “Penta” U-22 and V-2.
1933 “TRIM” was introduced.
1933 “Gyro” Gyroverken in Falun. “Lilla Björn”. “Stora Björn”.
1941 “Electrolux” buys “Archimedes”.
1943 “Electrolux” buys “Penta” production rights.
1945 “Penta PA-20”, 2 Hp.
1946 “Delfin” Tandsbyns Mekaniska Verkstad.
1953 “Aldell A-2” introduced.
1953 “STEFA” Stensholms Fabriker made moden flywheel magnetos.
1954 “J.B. Marinoped” J. Benson Motor, Eskilstuna.
1954 Nymanbolagen “NV Skipper” later “Crescent” introduced.
1958 “Husqvarna produced its own version of “Aldell A-30”.
1960 “MCB” is formed by Nymanbolagen and Monark.
1961 “MCB” takes over Husqvarna outboard production.
1962 The last “Penta-U21” is produced.
1965 “MCB” buys “Archimedes” from “Electrolux”.
1973 “Volvo Penta” buys “Monark Crescent” outboard production.
1979 “ Volvo Penta” close down its outboard motor production.