The Volvo V50

Dang
That car is great. There i was at fare and realized..hey there is only one place i need to go. And off i went to have a look at the V50 T5...oh man. I WANT IT..I NEED IT
But i realized that i might have to wait until the V50 T5 Awd is released. It uses the same awd system as the S60R and V70R use...
If yall havent seen it in real life...bend over backwords to get a look and/or a testdrive.
How they was able to cram a 2.5liter 5 cylinder engine into that engine bay is beyond me.

Nice car

Yeah, that is a really impressive new car from Volvo. I think the sedan with the AWD and T5 motor is a potential WRC. Sure looks the part to me.

Don't think that Ford will let Volvo get involved in the WRC.

Why not?

Politics of racing

Volvo already consistently beat Ford in BTCC and other touring car racing. So, I'm hopeful but not overly optimistic about WRC. Ford will call the shots.

I'm really happy and excited for Volvo since they are going to race in the Speed GT series. This is going to be a really interesting year for racing.
Happy rolling!

For starters the inside information i got from ppl working at Volvo last year said that it was mainly Fords thing that Volvo pulled out of The European Touring Car Championship.

Yeah, that's what I said to the blonde Swedish girl that represents Volvo for the European purchasing plan. She said "You have to go to Sweden to get your new Volvo!"
Frankly, if she was waiting at the airport I'd buy one tomorrow!
This weekend I went to test drive the S40 T5 6-speed on a road course and said I'd wait for the V50 AWD version. A Volvo engineer said that it would be the end of summer before the S40 AWD is released in the US and the V50 AWD would be later maybe by year end.
I also saw a S60R that was race ready for the Speed GT series in the US. Aparently a lot of racing teams in the US have been pushing Ford to have Volvo involved in the US racing, one of them Paul Newman Racing, who the Swedes consider the premire Volvo enthusiast in the US. Ford won't let the Volvo brand gain more popularity in Europe, so the Ford name will be the only offering, which they expect to gain more market share from the Focus racing exposure. In the US, the Volvo brand can benefit from the same strategy, hence three US racing teams in the Speed GT.
I'm still not sure if I want to sell my 960. I asked the Volvo engineer if he had heard of or done a T6 twin turbo conversion on a 960. He very quietly said, "Of course, that is the car of choice for Swedish enthusiasts right now. I have a '96 960 and am doing the conversion. We did the conversion for Paul Newman in his '96 965"
"I thought Paul Newman had a Ford 305 V8 that was supercharged in his 965? I saw the article in Swedespeed.com."
'No, we swapped it out for the T6, it is much more powerful. His car is almost 500 hp"
Hmmmm, maybe I should hold onto the 960 and spend the $$'s on the T6.
The S40 is a great car, handles well, but the hp could be a bit more. An AWD version would have less hp to the wheels than the T5. We talked about the aftermarket re-chipping, and he said that it'll be coming soon, although because it is a LPT, there is limited improvements compared to the S60 T5 with HPT.

T6

Yeah man! A T6 powered 960 would be a much nicer refined car with fantastic performance. I wonder who Volvo had build up a 500hp T6 for Paul Newman?

I really think the sales would go through the roof if the blonde Swedish girl was included with every purchase. In fact I'd be happy with a brunette or redhead!

Happy rolling!

Though it would be nice to have a V50, I'm happy with what I've got. I say if you restore a 245, turbocharge it to 220hp, tighten the suspension and modernize the interior, you've got a V50 for 1/5th the price, or less if you use "the Isaac method."

The more I think about it the more I want the T6 in my 960 and leave the 245 n/a with moderate 200hp or so.
IMHO, after test driving the S40 2.4i with n/a 160 hp motor and 6-speed, my wagon performs closely for both off the line and handling performance. The two cars are exactly the same weight, about the same hp (I'm not sure about mine , but guess it's somewhere 150-155 hp). So there's not enough difference unless I go for more hp.

efi.nos said:

For starters the inside information i got from ppl working at Volvo last year said that it was mainly Fords thing that Volvo pulled out of The European Touring Car Championship.

Click to expand...

yeah..it was also a ford thing when volvo pulled out of the btcc...right after ford bought volvo....rickard rydell, who was on contract with volvo...was loaned to ford to run the mondeo in the 2000 btcc...



anyway....check out the http://www.volvodriveevents.com/defaultReg.asp for those of u who haven't....


david bell's s60 racer for the speed gt was present too...


i was pretty impressed with the s40 overall...

Re: T6

dlot said:

Yeah man! A T6 powered 960 would be a much nicer refined car with fantastic performance. I wonder who Volvo had build up a 500hp T6 for Paul Newman?

I really think the sales would go through the roof if the blonde Swedish girl was included with every purchase. In fact I'd be happy with a brunette or redhead!

Happy rolling!

Click to expand...

Id own four!

do u guys have that commercial for the new s40 (i believe) that has the rally style video game? that looks amazing to me! i wish it were a real game with a volvo in it...especially a rally game. those are the best..
but volvo in real rally, wrc, would certainly be fantastic.

It's nice

We are rapping about that in the other S40 thread. Peter wrote that it's just like a Speedracer game. It's a really nice new car that is impressive for a small car package.

Yeah, I played the Playstation game and drove an Austin Martin DB9 and a Lotus Elite. I wrecked both cars so many times that the DB9 had dents and every corner taken off. lol
Really cool, each car has it's own characteristics for power and handling programed into it and you get a side view of the car showing how banged up it is after each crash. They have all sorts of cars listed to drive, soon maybe the S40 will be on the list!
What a blast!

i have a rally game for my computer, well i did years ago, probly doesnt work anymore, but there was some code that u could put in to get a volvo 740 wagon lookalike, but it had some dead sheep on the roof of it. i never understood it, but i used it all the time cuz i thought it was hilarious that a volvo wagon was in a game...even tho the handling was horrible, and u couldnt see where u were going cuz the sheep on the roof stood up so far..
it was weird..

...that was probably way off topic from what this thread was originally about. oh well