Scania-Vabis continuously expanded in the 1920s, but soon after that its growth stagnated. During the 1930s, the company had around 500 employees - one tenth of them white-collar. However, a big change was concealed beneath its stable surface. Scania-Vabis was transformed from a truck company into a bus maker with some production of trucks and separate engines.

The post bus that Scania-Vabis developed in 1922 was also its gateway to the rest of the bus market and to a new major customer, Stockholms Spårvägar (Stockholm Tramways). In 1929 that organisation bought a bus company, supplementing its tram network with city buses providing scheduled service.

The bulldog bus

The same year August Nilsson, chief designer at Scania-Vabis, travelled to the United States to visit Twin Coach in Ohio, a maker of flat-front "bulldog" buses with both the engine and driver's station inside. Such buses were roomy, despite their short wheelbase and the tight turning circle they needed. Nilsson gained inspiration. In 1932 Scania-Vabis delivered its first bulldog bus.

The new bus was introduced at the beginning of a deep economic recession. Truck sales fell by half in 1932, but demand for buses remained stable. Scania-Vabis thereby succeeded in maintaining employment while other engineering companies in Södertälje halved their workforces.

Now the entire production system functioned as a flexible service unit and experimental workshop for the design department. Workers made parts, components and vehicles directly from design drawings. Each worker decided his own methods and was in charge of his own tools and equipment.

Assembly workers enjoyed high status on the workers' career ladder. Individual assembly workers received boxes of items and put together entire front axles, rear axles, gearboxes or engines.
 
Forge and steel plate workers, coppersmiths, saddle makers, pattern makers and other skilled workers did their jobs under similar conditions. They worked independently and gradually taught their skills to helpers. Their working methods were highly craft-oriented.

Machining work also required great skill. Workers themselves were responsible for pre-production engineering and for making tools and any fixed equipment. Work was allocated by distributing drawings to individual workers, who decided what cutting data to use.

A working class elite

The skilled workers at Scania-Vabis became the "cream" of Swedish engineering industry workers. Turnover was nearly non-existent and it was rare for people to quit. Also contributing to the low turnover was favourable wage growth. Hourly wages were not exceptionally high, but piecework rates, which were set in free negotiations with the master mechanics, resulted in very good flexible earnings.

Put drastically, skilled workers set their own flexible earnings, which were normally twice as high as their hourly wages. Scania-Vabis workers were among the highest-paid in Sweden during the 1930s. They were something of a working class elite in Södertälje and were widely referred to as the "Vabis pork chop brigade".