2004 Volvo S40 Fully Loaded, 150k Miles, Sunroof, Clean Leather Seats, Red on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Volvo celebrates 20 years since 850 wagons came to BTCC

This year Honda Yuasa Racing brought a station wagon back to the ranks of competitors in the British Touring Car Championship (its drivers currently sit in third and fifth place in the Championship). In 1994, however, Volvo was the first team to run an estate in the series that's one of the best for delivering close racing.
Rickard Rydell and Jan Lammers drove the duo of 850 Estates prepped by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, lining up at Thruxton and proving that the rumors of a wagon in the series weren't a joke. The team used that year for development, getting the 2.0-liter, 290-horsepower, naturally aspirated five-cylinder engine ready for the next year's proper assault. The team's best finish over the 21 races was a fifth place, and they took 14th overall.
Rules changes led Volvo to switch to the 850 sedan the following year, but all the right noises had been made with the wagon. Rydell drive on to a third-place overall finish in 1995, three years later he claimed the Championship title. You'll find details and reminiscing from Rydell in the press release below, as well as the full video with scenes from the glory days.

Volvo joins Australia's V8 Supercars series [w/video]

It was just a rumor, but now it's official, mates: Volvo will be joining the V8 Supercars series in Australia with an official team for 2014. Volvo is partnering with Garry Rogers Motorsport and its own Polestar tuning firm to create Volvo Polestar Racing.
A V8 engine will be produced by the Swedish arm of the racing effort, and will be supplied to the Garry Rogers team, which will get the whole shebang ready for the track. The outfit will be running two V8 Supercars "based on the production S60 road car." Considering that the S60 uses a range of transversely mounted engines with four, five or six cylinders (powering either the front or all four wheels) while the new race car will employ a V8 sending about 650 horsepower to the rear wheels, make that very loosely based on the production S60...
Volvo claims this is the first factory-backed entry in the V8 Supercars series from a luxury brand. We should note, though, that Mercedes-Benz is represented in the series with an E-Class sedan, but that outfit isn't quite an official entry from the car's German parents. In any case, you're encouraged to watch the teaser video and read the press release below for all the details.

Volvos will brake for bicyclists with new detection technology

Anyone who pedals a bicycle knows that one of the biggest dangers to riders is a motorized vehicle - Volvo estimates that nearly 50 percent of all cyclists killed in European traffic have collided with a car. In the United States alone, 618 riders lost their lives in bicycle/motor vehicle crashes in 2010, and the number of injuries surpassed 52,000.
To help drop those numbers, Volvo has just announced Cyclist Detection with full auto brake - a technology that detects and automatically applies a vehicle's brakes when a cyclist swerves in front of a moving car. The basic components of the system include a radar unit integrated into the front grille, a camera fitted in front of the interior rear-view mirror and a central control unit. The radar is tasked with seeing obstacles in front of the vehicle and calculating distance, while the camera is responsible to determine what the object is. The central control unit, with rapid processing capabilities, monitors and evaluates the situation.
The technology, which will be sold bundled with its Pedestrian Detection and called Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection, will automatically apply full braking when both the radar and camera confirm a pedestrian or cyclist are in the immediate path of the vehicle. According to the automaker, the technology will be offered on the Volvo V40, S60, V60, XC60, V70, XC70 and S80 models from mid-May in 2013.