THE CULT CLASSIC! The Story of the BTCC Volvo 850 Estate (1994)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- 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!
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
@@TylerCMilligan ahh.. the way nascar used to be.
@@TylerCMilligan 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 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
Volvo 240: Turbo Brick
Volvo 850 wagon BTCC: HYPERBRICK
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.
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 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.
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 👍
Yes, the 98/99 Silver/Blue S40 was one of the most striking cars of the era. It was just beautiful.
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.
As a "wagon" fan, this was my favorite super tourer.
This car is dad goals, family hauler that hustles hard
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.
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.
Fun fact: Super Touring regulation was also used by JTCC for 1993 but it was proved very unpopular and JAF replaced JTCC with JGTC in 1994 which eventually evolved into Super GT
Why do people completely disregard the motorsport heritage of the Amazon and 240/242? The Amazon was very successful and the 242 Turbo won the ETCC among other things. People knew about Volvo's racing heritage long before the early 90's. Go watch some 80s group A and see for yourself.
It's 2022. We have the Internet. There's no excuse. Stop acting like the 850 was their first race car when it didn't win a single race.
Fun fact: John Cleland still has his Volvo dealership in Galashiels to this day.
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
I watched the BTCC here in the States. I saw exactly *ONE* T5-R on the street, which is a real shame.
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
If it wasn't for the Volvo racing in Australia, Scott McLaughlin wouldn't be in Indycar now.
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!
If you can get hold of an un-crashed and un-rusted Volvo estate of ANY kind for decenently cheap and decent interior condition buy it and hang on to it. They are going up in price because the roadsalt on swedish winter-roads are rusting their chassis and drivetrain to pieces. As fuel-cars goes banned in the EU eventually, old hard-to-kill run-forever cars like this will skyrocket on the used car market. Also any older carburator-cars and some of the first generations injection-cars can be transformed into wood-gas burners (carbon mon-oxide gas). There is a huge market of used-parts and even new-old-stock and fixing them is childsplay compared to say a 2001 Ford Focus that is just a case for the scrapheap today. Volvo was made to be repaired.
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 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.
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've been waiting for you to do the story of the Turbo Brick for quite a while now. Great work as ever, Aidan.
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
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 Gary Rogers Volvo deal is an episode all by itself, hint ….
Really 8th place is not bad for a total newbe racing with a huge brick.
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.
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
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Cheers from Manitoba.
"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.
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
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
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!
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.
The Golden Age of BTCC.. They were good years
The car that was a meme before the word meme was invented.
Ah, this brings back memories of the old toca 2 game on playstation, loved that game
you forgot to mention when someone tried to replace a windscreen on an estate race car and the hole was too small....cos aerodynamics 🙂
Your research and knowledge and succinct, literary delivery is unmatched.
Thanx TH-cam.......how about showing moving 850's for us wanting to reminisce 🚘
The platic dog in the boot makes me laugh every single time. Never got a consensus on what that dog was supposed to be though. As someone who spent a lot of time in 850s, they were great for loading up with stuf and very, very reliable
EDIT: Oh yeah and 850 estates had really good seats, too, better I'd argue than most modern cars too.
It was either a German Shepherd, Border Collie or a Labrador.
@@AidanMillward Sort of got an answer. Rickard Rydell stated it was a stuffed, not plastic, collie in the boot. Which cracks me up the mental image of an 850 estate going past someone then staring at the dog in the boot while trying to get past the 850. I dunno why but that is far funnier than it should be. As someone who spent many hours in Volvos with dogs peering out the back window, I totally get the wtf look the other racers had
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.
It's the reason I bought my 98 V70R.
170,000 miles. Everything except suspension and brakes are original :)
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 !
Still one of the best estate cars ever! ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼
Wagons always have a place in my heart - starting with the RS2, fast and cool wagons just are so cool
Wasn't there a Civic 'Tourer' estate thing that Team Dynamics ran for a year between the new type R model back in the early 2010's?
Yes they did! They tried the estate thing again for a season or two, as did BMR with the Subaru Levorg estate! 😀
So a Volvo, a Honda and a Subaru all in estate form, only in the BTCC!
Walkinshaw took those brown Rover SD1's to Australia in 84 for the Bathurst 1000. Took 2 Jaguar XJS' in 85. Those were the days Aiden. You won't remember but your mum will.
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.
Didn’t Honda run an estate?
"V8 Supercars which is now GT3 Meets NASCAR." I guess that. I Can't Escape The Black hole that is the Group GT3. If I can't Beat it. Watch it. I still got some Highlights to watch in me though.
You omitted TWR’s success with the Jaguar XJS in America which led to him running Jag’s Le Mans entries in endurance racing entering in 1985 (I was there and along with Aston Martin, fared rather disappointingly but went on to Le Mans victory in 1988.
Naturally under Ford ownership, Stewart Racing became the Jaguar F1 team ( hurray we all though, a special V12 engine and a decade of innovation, wins and glory - NOPE!) and TWR were involved there too also with pretty disappointing results, seemingly 7th in the Championship was their eternal achievement.
The Team was sold again, this time to an Austrian fizzy sugar water company who sold a product laced with the dreaded caffeine to the youth Raver set and Red Bull Racing was born. At the time, I would have thought that Lucozade missed a trick there!
What do I know?
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.
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.
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
"Their cars were boring"
*laughs in 240 Turbo*
i got annoyed with mr millward after about 30 seconds of his missinformed volvo motorsport history , during the 80s , they were etc champions with the 240 turbos , and prior to that rally and rally cross champions ,going back to the pv544 sedans ,122s models in british touring cars in the early 60, s against riley 1.5 s and mg magnettes [one day some bright spark will realise the 122s off 62 on would be a great car for goodwood ], and they are not all driven by old duffers although i now qualify as one but at 78 and still racing my clubmans car
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.
Aidan you know the rules NO MOM JOKES!!!!
the Volvo in the v8 supercars was awesome, it's a shame the road car didn't have any similarities to it, no V8 RWD option, just transverse 5 cylinder automatic, which is probably why they didn't go much better in sales, similar story for the TRD Aurion
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
When i worked for Volvo i had the pleasure of driving the original development TWR 850 saloon, Red with tan interior, very special car
Oy, your mum is younger than me, so not that ancient. I had a friend who raced a REAL Volvo back in the '60s, the 544 bathtub. It was a beautiful thing to see on the track.
Lets not forget TWR also won the BTCC with Mazda Rx7, and Win Percy.
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!!!
When everyone forgot about the 240 turbo from the 80's, here's another quick brick.
850 is best box
The Volvo that was in the V8 Supercars remains my favourite car in that series. Looked good and sounded better than the Fords and Holdens. Shame they left the series.
Hey, born in 1956 and I don't feel ancient (except maybe my knees!) :)
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...
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.
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.
Would've bought a Levorg due to the btcc success if it wasn't for the gearbox
Oi Aidan, that's the same age as me !!! Nice one we used to have an 850 Estate. Bloody good -car- tank.
Gotta love ya some Volvo Wags, ultimate sleeper pimp dragster of the 90s n early 2ks
At last!!!!!❤❤❤❤❤❤ I’m 43, I loved the attitude of those TWR estates. So happy you have done this AM.
TWR also made the engines for Kenny Roberts' 500cc GP bike in 1997.
Engine tucked back against the bulkhead so it's technically mid engined.
Great work with all of these pieces Aidan. I never comment on TH-cam 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.
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
Just about remember seeing them on telly. Most the mid 90s a blank after car crash in 90.
Someone built a similar era Volvo into a mini stock at my local oval track speedway in Canada. It was a big deal when he won the championship. Not to any Volvos on the street here.
I used to love buying the estate versions of cars in Gran Turismo and Forza.
Hello Aidan: I am four years older than your mother. That means that I am really, really ancient. Stay well and safe.
Tell me this isn't one of the coolest racecars ever made. Also if you do tell me that, I know you are lying.
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.
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. 🤔
By far the coolest car ever
Volvo are only boring to people who've never driven one. They surprise you!
850 > Levorg. That's my hot take.
Volvo V8?? Yamaha engine in a control chassis. And could you buy a Volvo with a V8? Rear rive? Err,,, NO.
Volvo wagon,, came to Oz and killed Greg Hansford. At Philip Island turn 1. Front drive cars at best are dangerous and on very high speed corners lethal.
"Front drive cars at best are dangerous and on very high speed corners lethal." Rubbish. By all accounts the unibody, front wheel drive 1930's Citroen Traction Avant handled a lot better than many rival body-on-frame, rear drive 1930's cars. For one thing, the major components of the Citroen could be placed so much lower.
Perfect timing for this, The 850 socks are on sale on Heel Tread!