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Another though just the shell was hidden away in storage in Mijdrecht, The Netherlands, until , when driver Jochen Pehtke purchased it. He added a 2. How did the wagon fare in the BTCC?
Not great, but not terrible either. Volvo enjoyed 5 th place at Oulton Park — its best placement — with Rydell coming in 14 th overall out of 17 for the season and Lammers one seat behind him. From the get-go, the company saw as a practice year — a time to get their feet wet, ease back into the racing circuit, and drum up some publicity. The wagon fully grabbed the opportunity that VP Rydeck had envisioned and ran with it. Who wants to be passed by a long box? Driver Rydell recalls:. To wind them up, in one heat we drove with a large stuffed collie in the boot during the parade lap!
At the end of the season, driver Lammers decided to leave Volvo and the BTCC, returning to sports cars for the season, racing in 24 Hours of Daytona, and 24 Hours of Le Mans the following year. After much hullabaloo from the industry, BTCC simply removed the ban on spoilers and other aerodynamics-enhancers for the season.
They had to decide between keeping its publicity-hungry wagon or moving to the more-traditional sedan for the BTCC. With some experience under their belt and publicity already drummed-up, Volvo switched to the sedan. The move paid off for Volvo. After the switch, driver Rydell came in third place overall for the following two years In , Volvo switched over to the S40 , with Rydell placing 4 th that year. Finally, the following year, he placed 1 st overall in the entire BTCC! Discuss this fantastic era in Volvo racing.
Watch out for our next installment on the BTCC!
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Volvo Classifieds. V90 Cross Country. XC90 Using MVS. MVS Contributors. How to Register for the Volvo Forum. What to Do After Registration. How to Post a Photo. New Here? It was never the fastest BTCC car and certainly not the nimblest, but the Volvo Estate of has gone down in touring car history as one of the most beloved racers to ever grace the grid.
Much of this is down to the fact that Volvo, a firm almost exclusively known at the time for big, boxy estates, clearly had a good sense of humour and were willing to take a chance on what was an unproven design. Drivers Jan Lammers and Rickard Rydell could have been forgiven for being somewhat sceptical, but the TWR run proved to be fast if not exactly class leading. Still, the sight of both estates trying to negotiate Druids and taking up almost the whole of the corner in the process remains one of the best remembered of the Super Touring era, and many were sad when Volvo swapped the estate for a saloon shell in Few cars from the modern era could be called truly iconic, yet the Team Dynamics Integras more than fit the bill.
The Integras used some of the running gear from the Civic Type Rs which had been campaigned previously, and this enabled them to be on the pace from the moment they made their series debut in , Matt Neal even going on to score points in every single race and winning the title for first for a privateer in the modern era with relative ease. Neal defended his title the following year and in the process underlined the cars speed and reliability.
Subaru joined Volvo and Honda in fielding an estate based touring car when it opted to enter the BTCC fray in , and the Team BMR Levorgs have proved incredibly fast, if a tad inconsistent at the beginning of the season. Only a fool would count him out of the title hunt.
Audi knew when it was onto a good thing with its all-wheel drive Quattro system, and once it had had its fill of glory in the World Rally Championship the Ingolstadt concern turned its attention to the track.
Both titles duly went to Audi. You could make a good argument for the BMW E30 M3 being the greatest touring car of all time, it certainly scooped enough silverware in race series throughout the globe to make a solid case for itself.
The Mondeo was another of those Super Touring era machines which took a number of years to find its form, not to mention a selection of different teams doing the running. Ford played the long game very effectively though, debuting with the Mk1 Mondeo in with Andy Rouse handling both engineering and driving.
Renault had made slow but unspectacular progress in the BTCC throughout the early s, with the Laguna proving to be a far more suitable tin-top than the Renault 19 it replaced. Outright wins for the car in showed the way ahead, and the team became even more competitive when Williams Grand Prix engineering took over the running and development of the Lagunas from onwards.
They were expected to take the crown in , and probably would have had Audi not shown up with its four-wheel drive A4 and swept all comers, but it all came good a year later in , the season when Alain Menu cruised to a dominating Renault victory. The latter was down to the Alfa Romeo s which were making their debut that season, or more correctly their aerodynamic kits.
Alfa Romeo claimed that the various wings and splitters adorning the cars of Tarquini and Simone were fully homologated and legal thanks to the Silverstone road cars. The fallout from this disagreement smouldered throughout and even saw Alfa skip Oulton Park in protest, but they were still forced to run the wing in its lowered position for the remainder of the season. Cleland and the Cavalier won out in — weeks after the latter had been withdrawn from sale and replaced by the Vectra B!
Indeed, by the time John Cleland took both titles in in some style and in one of the finest seasons of the Super Touring era , the Cavalier road car had been withdrawn from sale and replaced by the Vectra!