THE CULT CLASSIC! The Story of the BTCC Volvo 850 Estate (1994)
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- Опубликовано: 10 ноя 2022
- In 1994, controversy erupted when Alfa Romeo dodged a rule about aerodynamic parts on the car, but also that season, Volvo decided they were going to turn up with an estate. A big, hefty, choncc estate.
But why enter an estate car into a series for saloons and hatchbacks? Let's have a look.
Enjoy! And remember to like and subscribe for more!
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Nothing can defeat the almighty *B R I C K B O I*
Bricky boi
@@Ramtamtama Pricky Boi
Except for nearly every other car on the grid, including some privateers
White Block Supremacy
What about the Winckelrock in an 850 estate?
The engineering behind the engine on the 850 was incredible. They were very much struggling to get their inline 5 engine to be competitive, as it was either unreliable or at least 20 or so hp down on the rest of the field. Rules were that they had to use the original cylinder head and weren't allowed to cast a new one with different designs, but they could modify the original cylinder head quite a lot.
So to improve the overall power efficiency, they cut the head deck at an angle which changed the valve angle to a more favorable position. But doing this (along with loads of other changes) meant that each cylinder head cost around 15k each, whereas creating a custom cylinder head would have costed around 650 a piece. Crazy expensive, but it did make them one of the more powerful cars on the grid at 290hp
I think you will find that the TWR 850's were pumping out about 340 bhp 👍
Fun fact: One of the wagons was raced in the Australian series in 1995 by Tony Scott and managed a couple of third place finishes against some stiff Audi and BMW opposition!
This car is dad goals, family hauler that hustles hard
Yes, the 98/99 Silver/Blue S40 was one of the most striking cars of the era. It was just beautiful.
As a "wagon" fan, this was my favorite super tourer.
The car that drove James May to the source of the River Nile before the “two other blokes.”
Another funny story related to the Estate is I’ve bought a card wallet from the BTCC Blueprints stand at a race meeting with the car on it. I also own an official ExcelR8 jacket and one time I went to a nightclub and left said jacket in one of their cloakrooms. I unfortunately lost the slip of paper that had the hanger number despite me leaving it inside that Volvo card wallet. Fortunately the chap serving me was a BTCC fan, he recognised the wallet, put two and two together and I got the jacket back without problems. Moral of the story, carry as much motorsport memorabilia as you can.
Thank you for sheding light on soo many different bits of motorsport. Im a yankee, so not very informed on euro racing other than F1. Trying to get into GT3 as well. And BTCC seemed really interesting.
BTCC to me is like the British Road Racing equivalent of NASCAR. Dudes just bashing off of each other. Except they haven't implemented ridiculous gimmicks.
American here; GT3 is lame and F1 is a glorified parade. Stick to touring cars for a real sport
@@Tylercm262 ahh.. the way nascar used to be.
@@Tylercm262 BTCC is cleaner than people give it credit for tbh.
@@AidanMillward Oh that's for sure. They don't wreck near as much or like Nascar. But from what I've seen the cars can handle a bit of banging and stay competitive. And that always leads to super fun racing.
I watched the BTCC here in the States. I saw exactly *ONE* T5-R on the street, which is a real shame.
Ah, this brings back memories of the old toca 2 game on playstation, loved that game
I learned to drive in an 850 wagon. Yes, it was an auto, with the 2.5L 10 valve engine so a bit of a slug. But that 5 cylinder sound still gives me goose bumps. And you were able to get a damn good seat/pedal/steering wheel position in it for someone who was 6'2". Really miss driving that old bus, even if the brakes did give out after a few minutes of spirited driving.......
Same as the one I had, the standard brakes were poor for 140bhp. They used the same brakes on the 250bhp 850r 😅
Not quite, 302 on bigger ones and t5 although the diesel should of been given the option, 280 on the rest and pretty woaful admittedly, OEM 850r brakes handle pretty well but they do absolutely love a big upgrade
@@alexv8man not quite, it was a recall. The ‘police spec’ 302 upgrade was offered after they found the standard size brakes were poor. The 850 t5/t5r/R’s had 280’s standard and On all R models from 98-00 (s70/v70) they were standard.
You could get a manual with a tiny bit more power. Was easier to find rocking horse poop though.
@@haydenw8691 that would be the 850r manual vs auto having a 10hp difference. The auto cars are good but not a patch on the manual ones. 90’s auto boxes aren’t the best for performance
Hey Aidan, probably worth mentioning that one of the Volvo Wagons turned up in Australian super touring racing in 1995. Managed a best finish of 3rd and 8th in the championship, pretty much last of the regular runners. But we all talked about it - was a marketing success! Too bad they didn’t try an aero pack for the wagon 😜
The 850r estate has always been a semi achievable dream car of mine since I saw cars like this around. Absolutely love the inline 5 and the absurdity of a brick going around a track at high speed.
I had one back in the day, fun car but i remember the ac smelled like shit 😂
The yellow one is really rare.. but the red one isn´t that expensive... Still the red one is a lot better also. My boss at the time had both
Oh boy! I remember when the Volvo estate came out onto the track. Even non-petrolhead hubby insisted on watching BTTC every time it was on. He lost heart when it went :( It was surprisingly good! I miss those days; the cars had more character than now, IMHO.
Good video - just one amendment - which I know is true as I worked for Volvo as. A product manager at the time and was involved in BTCC and TWR - the Estate was only ever going to be used for the first season, we knew it wouldn’t win, so used it as a mule before changing to saloon for the next season - we knew it would be great PR to use the Estate and sure enough we got far more column inches and attention than we would have if we had run the saloon.
I loved this car. My Dad worked for Volvo at the time and we used to go to the races and cheer them on at Knockhill. Rickard Rydell was a great driver
Fun fact: John Cleland still has his Volvo dealership in Galashiels to this day.
Don't forget that Honda Yuasa Racing (Team Dynamics) used the Honda Civic tourer during the 2014 BTCC season driven by Matt Neal and 'Flash' Gordon Sheddon
The 850 Estate BTCC car was my favourite super touring era car along with the 1998 S40. Also in 1998, Rydell won the 1000km of Bathurst in the S40 with Jim Richards if memory serves
Peter Brock also drove a Volvo 850 around this era, mostly to annoy John Crennan, the head of HSV at the time. HRT warned him not to enter the rival series, so what else was he going to do? That said, I think the Volvo's victory in the 1986 Australian championship with the 240T is still the best story - rags to riches to complete implosion in about 18 months.
Shoutout to the Hot Wheels scale models! Both the BTCC colored mainline casting and the premium one in beige!
Got one behind me in red.
Your research and knowledge and succinct, literary delivery is unmatched.
Jim Richards ran a Volvo on the Australian Touring Car Championship. A touring car championship for the Non-V8 Super Cars. He won regularly and the car was a weapon.
When i worked for Volvo i had the pleasure of driving the original development TWR 850 saloon, Red with tan interior, very special car
Wagons always have a place in my heart - starting with the RS2, fast and cool wagons just are so cool
I absolutely need to find footage of this, the imagery of this chonky boi flying around the track alongside the sleeker saloons must've been one hell of a spectacle. Probably right up there with the mad lads who thought running a van in the Spa 24 Hours was a good idea.
They had the flying brick 240 Turbo in the 80s that Eggenberger built. The thing looked like it had been drawn with an etch a sketch but it went like stink.
Volvo also ran in the Australian touring car championship pre V8 Supercars. It was seen as a joke, but was bloody quick. Dick Johnson said in an interview at one point that the only difference between driving a Volvo and putting your hand up a Scotsman’s kilt was that you’d feel a bigger prick in the Volvo.
By far the coolest car ever
Glory days. I was a newly-minted sales rep in the mid 90's and believe me it was a big deal in the car park what you drove and what the badge on the back was. The BTCC really had a bearing on what you might choose for your next car but I wouldn't have swapped my Cav for a Mundano for anything.
I may only be 21 and know jack diddly about the BTCC but I always love odd cars in Motorsports, and this is one of them!
The Volvo 850 is a gem of a car, estate or sedan doesn't matter and I still see them running around, bodies sometimes beaten up but those engines still strong...
I remember here in Canada we would get these commercials for Volvo's and they showed that Bricky Boy Volvo wagon kicking ass in BTCC races. And it made me mad I had no way of actually seeing the races on TV except for the odd special on Speedvision in the late 90's
Nice Retrospective. Last year I bought a '97/98 Volvo V70 T5 2.3 Turbo. This was the last year, before Volvo went to proprietary engine mgt. Two years later, Ford happened. Love the car. Quiet & docile, till I put my foot in it.
Fellow moose head here, I love my yellow t5r sedan and your s70 has the 850r spec engine being the 2.3 and not the 2.4. You can do a flash tune on the ecu (your running motronic 4.4) and get an easy 20 hp gain. And you’ll definitely feel it. I manual swapped my R and man it’s a blast to drive though the torque steer is pretty bad. I’d also have a set of Cv axles on hand as spares as they can chew through them with higher power and spirited driving (right hand side especially) and also make sure it does not overheat ever, the aluminum heads have a 0 tolerance for getting to hot as I found out the hard way with a stuck thermostat on the highway. Besides that they are fantastic
"Spoilers in the boot" was also a trick played by Jaguar in the 1970s with the XJ-C. This may sound mad, but it is so. Some owners who bought a new XJ-C picked it up from the dealer and found a huge, 3-piece unpainted spoiler in the boot. Most, I imagine, were chucked in the bin. Only enough to homologate the car were produced.
Saw it racing as a teenager, bought a 850 T5 Estate in the early 2000s... absolutely mental car both on and off track... Straight lines were good, didn't like the slow corners much :)
.. what's that officer, I'm not supposed to be doing that? .. but you have one too!
I had an 850 turbo wagon, loved it. They look so good as a wagon too. Every time I see one I get to thinking of buying another one. A 400hp caged 4 seat race car would be mega cool and get a good laugh
The reason for my buying an 850 as my first car was Reading about its racing History.
I now i have 3 of them.
And yes they are all estates
You didn't mention the trick head work that they did to increase horsepower or the success that Volvo had in the SCCA with K-Pax racing with Randy Pobst at the wheel
The Golden Age of BTCC.. They were good years
You forgot to mention the Honda Civic Tourer that Honda Yuasa Racing/Team Dynamics ran in 2014. It didn't win the championship either, but finished third in the hands of Gordon Shedden.
It's quite easy to forget just how indomitable Rydell was in '95 and onwards. The S40 took everything learned from the 850, including the trick engine others have alluded to and strapped it into an even better chassis, and he absolutely capitalised on it. It was also along with the Mondeo & Xedos 6 one of the rarer engine configurations, and that 5 pot Volvo engine sounded absolutely incredible.
Still one of the best estate cars ever! ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼
You say slow, but at Snetterton, Rydell qualified 3rd, but with the poor reliability, the thing failed to fire up at the start. Also there was another estate before the Levorg, Honda raced the Civic Tourer in 2014. Plus it wasn't the fact that Alfa had aftermarket aero, if it could be bought with the car from the manufacturer, it was ok. It was that the spoilers could be extended. They sold the cars with them in the retracted position, but raced with them extended. They would move them depending on track. You'll notice the Laguna and BMW's started the season without wings, but by the end, they had them too, BMW added a new front bumper and side skirts as well, too match the M3 (the M Sport pack). I loved the 90's BTCC, so much gamesmanship, great vid 👍
Volvo weren't seen as a "Joke" in Australia, we saw the 850 estate in the BTCC and The same cars (literally) ran 8th in the '95 Australian Super Touring Chapionship too.
The S40 won *the* bathurst 1000 in '98, when the V8 Supercars and the Racing Drivers Club were fighting over TV money...
Volvo pulled support in '99.
Volvo did win the win the European Touring Car championship somewhere around 1984, also our old Aberdeen Volvo dealer David Gillanders rallied it with some succes if I remember correctly.
The 850 wagon was a great looking thing and it sounded tits. Fond memories of all those cars, the screaming engines and the derby style racing.
I had an 850 T5. It was a fire breathing beast
At last!!!!!❤❤❤❤❤❤ I’m 43, I loved the attitude of those TWR estates. So happy you have done this AM.
I just inherited my mom's old 850 wagon; just a base version, non-turbo. I love it.
Great work with all of these pieces Aidan. I never comment on RUclips videos but had to with this as I bought a T5 Estate in the late 90s off the back of watching Rickard Rydell throw his around the BTCC tracks.
This was awesome my dude! I loved watching the estate get manhandled when I was a teenager. I loved the way the wheels and tires were tucked so perfectly and the drivers would push their cars and themselves literally past the limit lap after lap.
I've been waiting for you to do the story of the Turbo Brick for quite a while now. Great work as ever, Aidan.
It's the reason I bought my 98 V70R.
170,000 miles. Everything except suspension and brakes are original :)
I had a friend whose family had a black 850R Estate, or Wagon here in the States. For a boxy little grocery getter, that thing was a rocketship.
Volvo 240: Turbo Brick
Volvo 850 wagon BTCC: HYPERBRICK
I had an 850 T5 when I was 19 and boy oh boy was it a stonker. Absolute lunatic of a car but also the most comfortable seats known to man. Loved every second of owning it.
I remember driving an 850 turbo estate at a Goodwood corporate track day in the 90's. Was a bit of a barge but it would carry a number of us around the track whilst getting the 1-1 coaching thru the corners , then swap around, strange experience !
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Cheers from Manitoba.
850's and volvo's in general are still very popular racingcars, for bangers because the chassis is very hard
Speaking of bangers I followed a Corsa C banger on the M1 last weekend.
Awesome. As the owner of probably the only daily driven P2 V70R in the Metro Detroit area, it is still great to drive a stock unicorn.
I loved the btcc back then it was amazing and still enjoy watching the races now. The estate was so cool to see but I loved the s40. I once heard Ford was spending around £8 million in 99!
BTW that volvo v8 supercar sounded amazing, saying that the volvo btcc cars had a beautiful sound really different to all the other cars
Fantastic video
I loved the 850R at the time. Someone here in Australia was rallying one as well as there being some racing in the 2.0litre class of racing.
I used to love buying the estate versions of cars in Gran Turismo and Forza.
Perfect timing for this, The 850 socks are on sale on Heel Tread!
Old Volvos are just spectacular. Just bought an 85 244 for my daughter’s first car.
Nice one, I love 90's Volvo's
Minor addition:
The legend of this car has since been added to by one James May and his trip across Africa.
Equally negative karma came from it being in Top Gear
I remember here in New Zealand in the early 80s Volvo 240 T 'flying brick' in the Group A races and with Robbie Francivic it did really well and won many races and won our Wellington street race and it was pushing a lot of boost back then
i corner flagged/ems at lime rock in 90's. there were 2-5 volvo wagons that came for lapping days. the 'instructors class' spanked the ''hot'' porches, bimmers. theres a reason some volvo r called a flying brick
The Gary Rogers Volvo deal is an episode all by itself, hint ….
Oi Aidan, that's the same age as me !!! Nice one we used to have an 850 Estate. Bloody good -car- tank.
Aidan you know the rules NO MOM JOKES!!!!
When everyone forgot about the 240 turbo from the 80's, here's another quick brick.
Having a 25 y old v70 brick, I still resist to let it go. It's simplicity and practicality and reliability is as good as it gets. It's a no bs car. Anything we have in production at the moment is meant to lose it's value and be expandable after at least 10 years.
Proud owner of a 850 Turbo here
If I ever own one it will be an 850! Loved that car in the series.
I've never seen this car in a racing livery, but holy cow wagons rock!
The brilliant thing about Volvo's entry was just how different they were.
It was an unusual brand, racing an unusual car, with an unusual engine - that screaming 5 cylinder engine is one of the most incredible sounds in motorsport.
Also reminded of a TWR trick where they'd overfill the oil in the car, so it would spit out flames and oil to competitors behind - remember seeing Rydell's S40 with an almost pitch black rear bumper and the team proclaiming their innocence that the slick conditions and cars struggling for grip had nothing to do with them.
Nice vid thanks.👍🏽
Finally got a WRC ad
If it wasn't for the Volvo racing in Australia, Scott McLaughlin wouldn't be in Indycar now.
awesome video
I remember watching them at Brands Indy in 1994....a Volvo briefly got ahead of Simoni's Alfa, which got a cheer from the crowd, but dropped back whilst the Alfa made the podium. And then Tim Harvey's Brands double in the 1995 saloon version, a proper wet'n'wild race complete with some classic Cleland quotes (Ach, I'm aff at Paddack).
There could have been another manufacturer added to the fold in the BTCC between 1992-2000 in the form of Chrysler. In 1994 the Neon made its debut and there were rumors that it would be heading to the BTCC as a way to increase sales of the car in Europe. Instead Chrysler decided to enter it in the Pro Stock category in the NHRA & and any notion of the Neon going road racing in either the BTCC or Trans Am was crushed.
you forgot to mention when someone tried to replace a windscreen on an estate race car and the hole was too small....cos aerodynamics 🙂
I got into btcc around 97 so didn't know about the estate, other than recent memes/hype. From the stories, I honestly thought that car won everything. I remember the 98 s40 being immense so didn't seem too far fetched. Thanks for providing the actual facts :)
So i gave owned my '04 S60 R for about 5 years and i absolutely love my volvo. I consider the 850 R to be the S 60 R father, seeing as how there wouldnt be an S 60 R without volvo 1st producing the 850 R
TWR also made the engines for Kenny Roberts' 500cc GP bike in 1997.
Er 50s and 60s early 70s Volvo had rally cars , even raced a car specially designed coupe called the Sonnet.
They were successful with 92, 94 Amazon coupe, 96,99.
I said it was their first factory effort since the 80s, not first factory effort overall.
Gotta love ya some Volvo Wags, ultimate sleeper pimp dragster of the 90s n early 2ks
I believe that at the time Volvo entered the BTTC something like 80 percent ot their UK sales were estates, Volvo was about estates here. I was at Brands when the 850s came in, most people seemed to be quite taken with the idea. They sounded good, too.
Jan Lammers wasn't averse to getting his elbows out, either. His response to helping Hans Stuck off at Druids (Porsche v Jaguar) was 'I am not paid to let people pass me' (or words to that effect).
Lets not forget TWR also won the BTCC with Mazda Rx7, and Win Percy.
ICONIC WAGON
Love TWR cars, took an 850 estate to the speedway with my go kart trailer hooked up, (racing in the area the next day) the gate people said turn left to go to the pits, 😂, should of entered the Estate in street stocks (estate was a work demonstration model, dealership days) Ps the GRM sedan down under was a Weapon!!!
This brings back memories - I did a couple of seasons as a motor-racing marshal in the UK, and remember both these and the Alfas. (Larini and Nannini in the Alfa one season, IIRC?) I would have seen them at Donington, probs. (I was usually a paddock marshal helping get all the cars ready to go to the grid in order etc. - mainly @Donington, Mallory and Cadwell Park).
@@fontheking5 Okay - I must be forgetting then - I did some DTM meetings too, so obviously got confused! Thanks for clearing that up!
Alfa Romeo did race in the BTCC in 1994 in the 155 Silverstone with Tarquini and Simoni, and Tarquini won.
In 1995 Derek Warwick and Simoni started the season, and after poor results in a poorly prepared car, Tarquini was called back in, but the results did not improve sadly.
In 1994, the factory Italian Alfa Corse team ran the Alfas and won everything, in 1995, Prodrive took over, but a lack of development meant that 95 Alfas were backmarkers sadly.
My mind was locked on the later 156 STW in my last comment, sorry.
@@phillippatryndal4255 DTM was at Donny in 94 and Nannini won, Larini was 3rd. The 155 Ti was a very different beast though.
@@fuzzy-daddy83 That'll be it then. Was it the same season as Ellen Lohr in the Mercedes-AMG? I remember talking to her in the paddock and coming away with loads of posters and stuff from them :D I also remember being on the pitlane buzzer for one meeting, but can't remember what it was...
I loved the V8 volvo look.
I remember when James May (and two other blokes) discovered the source of the Nile in an 850R...
Good times...
Croft was not a part of the BTCC untill 1997, and that weekend it rained so much, they coulden`t do any qualifying on saturday for the BTCC or any of the support classes, so they had to spend all night trying to clear the track of water, and they succeded, and the races could be ran in dry conditions on sunday.
The 850 Super touring car was actually first to be built by Steffansson Automotive, who made the red prototype, in 1993 as a testing bed to see if the project was feasible, later on Tom Walkinshaw Racing was hired to build and race the cars.
The 850:s engine was based on the Volvo 850 2.0, an engine almost totally unknown to most people, but it was introduced as a base engine in 1994, as a responce to complaints that the 850 was to expensive, even in it`s 2.5 liter form.
In Italy a 20 valve version of the 2 liter engine with 140 hp was sold due to higher taxes for cars above 2 liters.
Alfa Romeo joined the BTCC in 1994, Honda in 1995.
The Ford Mondeos were built an ran by Andy Rouse Engineering between 1993-1995.
West Surrey Racing ran the Mondeos in the btcc between 1996-1998.
In 1996, the Mondeos were buiilt by Schubel in Germany and 97 and 98 by Reynard.
In 1999 Prodrive took over the Fords and built them in house 2
It was just an example. Had Alfa not played tricks with the aero they might have run at Croft. 🤔
Go on mate, do a video explaining that Mark Skaife “bought” HRT so that walk-in Shawn could continue to own and run it… that’ll be really straightforward and clear…