When a Volvo Met a Swedish Submarine

🚗 Parked Volvo Starts Rolling Toward the Harbor

On 19 August 1961, a Volvo PV544 was left on slightly sloping ground near the South Harbor in Lysekil, Sweden. The driver walked away without applying the handbrake. Gravity supplied the rest of the plan: the unattended car began rolling downhill toward the waterfront.

The vehicle gathered momentum, crossed the harbor street, and headed toward a target no motorist would reasonably expect to meet in a traffic report. There were no steering corrections, no brake lights, and no driver inside to realize that an ordinary parking mistake was becoming an extraordinary transport accident.

⚓ HSwMS Bävern Receives an Unexpected Harbor Visitor

At the pier sat HSwMS Bävern, a Swedish submarine tied up in the harbor. The rolling Volvo struck the vessel’s bow, creating what is widely described as the only known collision between a car and a submarine. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

The scene sounds like a joke written backward—first choose a submarine, then invent a car accident capable of reaching it—but the damaged automobile and docked vessel were real. The submarine survived the unlikely encounter and later continued its service, while the car’s eventual fate is less clearly documented.

📷 Hans Johansson Captures the Unlikely Collision

The episode became memorable because Hans Johansson, editor of the local newspaper Kuriren, happened to be nearby with a camera. His photograph preserved the remarkable aftermath: a road vehicle pressed against military hardware at the edge of a Swedish harbor.

The surviving image now connects a small local mishap with the broader history of Swedish maritime history. It also shows why eyewitness photography matters. Without Johansson’s timing, the story might sound like an embellished harbor tale rather than a documented event.

🛑 One Forgotten Handbrake Creates Maritime History

The practical lesson is simple: secure a parked vehicle, especially on a slope. A rollaway accident can develop quietly and cover surprising ground before anyone can intervene. Most forgotten handbrakes do not end beside a submarine, but every uncontrolled vehicle poses a serious risk.

The historical lesson is more playful. Transport history is full of carefully planned engineering, yet one of its most memorable collisions began with a moment of inattention. On that August day, a Volvo briefly crossed the boundary between road traffic and naval affairs—and Hans Johansson was there to prove it.

Original sources:Wikimedia Commons photograph · original discussion post

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