Think Logo

An oil crisis idea from Aurskog

Think began as a family project. Lars Ringdal sketched a small electric city car during the energy crisis of the early 1970s. The oil shock faded, the idea didn’t. His son Jan-Otto Ringdal picked it up again in the 1980s, and in 1990 the project received state development money.

The company that came out of it was Pivco. According to a history published by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, it was planned in the autumn of 1990 and registered in January 1991, with Jan-Otto Ringdal as its first managing director. The name came from the car itself: Personal Independent Vehicle, or PIV. Home was Aurskog, in the municipality of Aurskog-Høland.

First a bee, then a better word

Before there was Think, there was CityBee. Pivco launched that brand name for its early cars and used a yellow and black bee as the symbol. A PIV2 prototype was used at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, and about 120 PIV3 cars followed in 1995 and 1996 for public testing.

For the production car, Pivco wanted a stronger name. The Oslo advertising agency Virtual Garden was hired to help, and the winning word came from consultant Elisabeth Mannsverk: Think. The first presentation to the board did not go well. Then investor Jan Møller spoke up, calling the name brilliant, and it stuck. The Think brand made its debut at the EVS15 electric vehicle conference in Brussels in October 1998.

The i that turned upside down

Here is the clever bit. When the designers drew the name as a logo, they flipped the letter i upside down. A dot on top of a stroke became a stroke on top of a dot, and that looked a lot like an exclamation mark. So the name was written with one: Th!nk.

Store norske leksikon, the Norwegian encyclopedia, says the spelling was used on the logo and in advertising for two reasons: to protect the brand and to visualise innovation. In ordinary text the company was simply Think, and the exclamation mark was never used consistently in running text. Under Ford, which took over soon after, the name also appeared in capitals as TH!NK.

That is as far as the documented story goes. No reliable source explains a meaning for the colours or names the person who drew the final graphic, so we won’t guess.

Ford’s electric experiment, and what came after

Pivco went bankrupt shortly after the Brussels launch. Jan-Otto Ringdal and a few colleagues bought the estate, and that opened the door for Ford. In January 1999 Ford bought 51 percent of Think Nordic, and by 2000 it owned the whole company. Ford president Jac Nasser opened the new factory in Aurskog in the autumn of 1999 and said the Th!nk name would go on other vehicles too. It did: Th!nk became Ford’s group for alternative-energy vehicles. In August 2002 Ford decided to pull out, and in February 2003 the Singapore-based Kamkorp took over. Think was declared bankrupt in February 2006, bought by Norwegian investors and employees, and filed for bankruptcy again in June 2011.

Landmark Thinks, from prototype to the last City

• 1994: PIV2. A prototype used during the Lillehammer Winter Olympics.
• 1995: PIV3. About 120 were built and tested on public roads.
• 1999: Th!nk City. A two-seat electric city car with a plastic body, designed with help from Lotus Engineering. About 1,000 were built in Aurskog before production stopped in 2002.
• 2001: Th!nk Neighbor. A low-speed open vehicle for closed communities, built at a Ford plant in Detroit.
• 2007: Think City. The new generation. From 2009 it was assembled in Finland, and the last car came off the line in early 2011.
• 2010: Think City (US). Production started in Elkhart, Indiana, for the American market.

From 1999 until early 2003 Think belonged to Ford, and its first car owed part of its design to Lotus. If you like small electric pioneers, the story of India’s Reva makes a good companion read. The cars themselves have not been forgotten: in 2018 the Norwegian Road Museum took over around 50 prototypes and much of the equipment from Aurskog.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the Think logo have an exclamation mark?

When the name was drawn as a logo, the letter i was turned upside down, which made it look like an exclamation mark. According to Store norske leksikon, the Th!nk spelling was meant to protect the brand and visualise innovation.

Who came up with the name Think?

Consultant Elisabeth Mannsverk, working with the Oslo agency Virtual Garden. The brand was launched in Brussels in October 1998.

Was Think owned by Ford?

Yes. Ford bought a majority stake in January 1999 and owned the whole company from 2000. It decided to leave in 2002, and Kamkorp took over in February 2003.

What was Think called before?

The company was Pivco, named after its Personal Independent Vehicle, and its early cars were sold under the CityBee name with a bee as the symbol.

When did Think stop making cars?

Production in Finland ended in early 2011, and Think Global filed for bankruptcy in June 2011.

Bee, PIV and Th!nk: the Aurskog record

Founded

1991

Country

Norway

Headquarters

Aurskog, Norway

Current emblem

The wordmark Th!nk, with the i turned upside down into an exclamation mark, used from 1998

Known for

The Think City, a small Norwegian electric city car

Status

Defunct