Volvo Dealer Racing, known originally as the Volvo Dealer Team and occasionally as Volvo 850 Racing or Volvo S40 Racing was an Australian motor racing team that first appeared in 1994 racing in Group E production car racing and at the Bathurst 12 Hour before stepping up to the new Australian Super Touring series in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

and continued racing through to

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

History

In 1994, Volvo contracted George Shepherd's Roadsafe Motorsport to manage a Group E production car programme.Australia's most iconic Volvo racecar
Speedcafe 10 June 2013 The team first appeared at that year's Bathurst 12 Hour, running a Volvo 850 T-5R in Class T and an 850 GLT in Class B. Tony Scott would continue driving the 850 GLT, claiming third in the

1994 Australian Production Car Championship The 1994 Australian Production Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title open to Group 3E Series Production Cars. It was the eighth Australian Production Car Championship and the first to be restricted to front wheel drive cars wit ...

. The T-5R re-appeared at the

1994 Sandown 500 The 1994 Sandown 500 was an endurance motor race for Group 3A Touring Cars and selected production cars held at the Sandown circuit in Victoria, Australia on 4 September 1994. The event was staged over 161 laps of the 3.10 km circuit, a total ...

with Kent Youlden driving alongside Dutch Formula 1 driver

Jan Lammers Jan Lammers (Johannes Antonius Lammers, Zandvoort, 2 June 1956) is a racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing h ...

winning its class and finishing fourth amongst the production cars. In

, the team benched the production cars as the 12 Hour race left Bathurst to move to an end of season race at Eastern Creek Raceway, with the team entering the

Australian Super Touring Championship The Australian Super Touring Championship (formerly known as the Australian 2.0 Litre Touring Car Championship) was a CAMS-sanctioned national motor racing title for Super Touring Cars. History Super Touring was introduced into Australia in 1993 ...

, acquiring a Volvo 850 Estate that had been campaigned in the

1994 British Touring Car Championship The 1994 Auto Trader RAC British Touring Car Championship season was the 37th British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season. Changes for 1994 *The number of double header meetings were increased from three to eight *Double headers now awarded f ...

from

Tom Walkinshaw Racing Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was a motor racing team and engineering firm founded in 1976, in Kidlington, near Oxford, England, by touring car racer Tom Walkinshaw. The company initially handled privateer work before entering works touring ca ...

. In 1996,

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...

was signed to drive a more conventional Volvo 850 sedan. Jim Richards would drive the car to win the

1996 Bathurst 1000 The 1996 AMP Bathurst 1000 was an endurance race for Group 3A 5.0 Litre Touring Cars held on 6 October 1996 at the Mount Panorama Circuit near Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The race, which was the 37th running of the Bathurst 100 ...

support event, before replacing Brock full-time in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

. In

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, the team upgraded to a S40 winning the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most rece ...

. The team expanded to two S40s in

with Cameron McLean, Mark Adderton and Mark Williamson driving the second car. The team closed at the end of 1999 after a loss of factory support from Volvo.

References

{{Reflist Australian auto racing teams Auto racing teams established in 1994 Auto racing teams disestablished in 1999 1994 establishments in Australia 1999 disestablishments in Australia