In 1959, a Swedish engineer at Volvo patented what would become one of the greatest inventions of all time

Volvo stood to make billions

But after a meeting with Volvo's President, he decided to give it away for free - and it changed the world

Here’s how that meeting went 🧶👇

1) After receiving his mechanical engineering degree from a University in his hometown of Härnösand, Sweden, Nils Bohlin joined aircraft maker Saab to work on ejector seats.

For 16 years, he continued to focus on safety and was eventually designing complete pilot rescue systems.

2) Nils was anchored to the idea of safety above all else, and brought this same mentality to a welcoming team at Volvo.

There, he focused his attention on all the driver and passenger safety systems, starting with seatbelts.

3) Seatbelts weren’t a standard feature in cars at the time. Upgrading would get you seatbelts consisting of a simple lap band, like those used in airplanes today.

While better than nothing, these two-point seat belts didn’t adequately protect the human body in collisions.

4) “I realized both the upper and lower body must be held securely in place with one strap across the chest and one across the hips”

In just one short year of applying his aircraft safety experience to cars, Nils invented the V-Type three point safety belt.