Volvo Cars has built four million cars at its Ghent plant in Belgium.
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The milestone Volvo V50 wagon was destined for a buyer in the Netherlands.
Volvo began building cars in Belgium in 1965, initially to avoid the country’s high import taxes on finished cars, but the plant has, together with Volvo Cars Torslanda, since become one of the automaker’s two main factories.
The first model assembled in Ghent was the Volvo 120, popularly known as the Amazon. Other models included the 140 and 240-series, 740 and 940, 850, S70 and V70, and the current C30, S40, V50 and S60. Assembly of the new XC60 starts in a few weeks.
Volvo Cars Ghent has about 4,000 employees.
Volvo built its first car in April 1927 and expanded with a new plant in Torslanda that was fully operational by 1964.
The previous year it had opened an assembly plant in Halifax, Canada (since closed), with capacity for building 5,000 cars a year for North America.
Ghent, opened in 1965, initially had capacity for 14,000. Production peaked in 2005, when 258,000 cars were built.
