Friday 29th March 2013

Pic Of The Week: Volvo 850 BTCC

The first - and only - BTCC estate car is the subject of our image of choice this week

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Quite frankly this photo needs no words. It's a Volvo estate on a race track, and that's reason enough for it to be Picture of the Week; a trip down memory lane to a time when the BTCC was essential viewing and took a primetime slot on weekend TV.

Race 'em on Saturday, sell 'em on Monday was never more apt, but in the heyday of the BTCC it was more a case of race 'em on Saturday, straight to the bodyshop on Monday as nudging and jostling was par for the course. Heroes were made of such names as Cleland, Rydell, Tarquini, Sytner and Rouse.

Earlier thie week the flying 850 was posted on our Facebook page and recieved over 600 likes (and counting) making it more than worthy of inclusion on the homepage. Especially considering the 850 T5 Ad Break we ran on Monday. Volvo openly admitted at the time that the BTCC car was a marketing ploy to show the sportier side of Volvo - and boy did it work. Will we ever see the like again?

Enjoy.

Traditional (4:3)
Computer widescreen (16:10)
TV widescreen (16:9)
Portrait (smartphone, etc)

 

[loudlashadjuster]

I'm no big fan of their cars, but part of me will always hold Volvo dear for having the chutzpah to race the 850 estate. Almost seems like a "did that actually happen?" thing nowadays.

Many happy Knockhill memories watching them!

[loudlashadjuster]

doogz said:

They only raced it for one season, you can't have that many happy memories of it at Knockhill!

My addled brain has difficulty sorting out what happened last week, no wonder it is getting hazy about stuff that happened nearly 20 years ago!

[loudlashadjuster]

Largest I can lay my hands on after a quick Google is 1596 x 897, so not even 2 megapixels.

Setting aside copyright issues, I doubt it'd make for a decent print even at A4.