Not until the 1950s would Volvo be a major supplier of heavy-duty trucks. From the very start up to WW II, Volvo was, however, a major producer of medium-duty trucks, which sometimes were used for heavy-duty purposes due to the rugged design.
The influence of international trends
Sweden is nowadays the base for two major truck producers of global scope. This was by no means the case in the late 1930s. By then, countries like the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany were major 'truck-producer countries'.
For this reason, the design of the Volvo trucks of the mid and late 1930s was very much influenced by major design trends of other countries, and also by Volvo cars, which were to a very great extent designed by engineers who had been trained and had been working in American automobile companies.
A major sales success
Typical of the late 1930s is the generation of Volvo trucks which have become known as the 'Sharpnose', which consisted mainly of light to medium-duty vehicles. They replaced the LV76-78 vehicles of 1934/35 and became a major sales success, especially considering that the total number of vehicles produced during WW II was fairly limited, and that very few civilian customers were permitted to obtain a new truck and new tyres for it.