<< Prev Page 2 of 2 Signed to drive for Volvo in the BTCC were Dutch veteran and a Le Mans winner with TWR Jaguar in 1988 Jan Lammers and up and coming Swedish driver Rickard Rydell. When he agreed to join the effort Rydell was not actually aware that he would be racing an estate and he later agreed that he was glad he did not know at the time as he might as well have reconsidered. Both Lammers and Rydell got their first taste of the car on Tom Walkinshaw's driveway before the cars were shipped to Snetterton for a test on the the Monday and Tuesday before the Thruxton competition debut.
The estate body proved to indeed be an aerodynamic advantage as the car produced less lift than a comparable saloon. However, the additional metal high up in the car and behind the rear axle meant a higher centre of gravity, which in turn affected the handling. As a result, most of the headlines made by Volvo during the 1994 season were because of the shape of the car and not so much the performance with Lammers and Rydell both scoring a fifth place finish as the best result. As any PR person would explain; headlines are headlines and so the effort was certainly a success from a marketing perspective.
The decision to run the more conventional 850 saloon instead during the 1995 season was effectively made for Volvo and TWR by Alfa Romeo. They had debuted the 155 TS with a rear wing and the FIA made the aerodynamic device legal as long as it was not visible from the front and mounted ahead of the rear bumper. Due to the shape of the estate body, that left the TWR engineers with nowhere to put the wing. To speed up the development process and getting testing early, the third of three estates was 'chopped' to resemble the saloon car before the end of 1994.
The many valuable lessons about the engine and chassis during the effort's debut year had an immediate effect in 1995 as Volvos won six races that year and a further five in 1996. The five-cylinder engine was carried over to the S40 raced from 1997 and helped propel TWR, Volvo and Rydell to the BTCC championship in 1998.
Perhaps not a winner on the track, the 850 Estate provided Volvo with superb media attention and also provided a fabulous alibi to use the program's first year to properly develop the package with little outside pressure. All three estates still exist with the the third car having recently been converted back to its original specification. << Prev Page 2 of 2
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Signed to drive for Volvo in the BTCC were Dutch veteran and a Le Mans winner with TWR Jaguar in 1988 Jan Lammers and up and coming Swedish driver Rickard Rydell. When he agreed to join the effort Rydell was not actually aware that he would be racing an estate and he later agreed that he was glad he did not know at the time as he might as well have reconsidered. Both Lammers and Rydell got their first taste of the car on Tom Walkinshaw's driveway before the cars were shipped to Snetterton for a test on the the Monday and Tuesday before the Thruxton competition debut.