If the 700 series was a gamble for Volvo’s
survival, the 850 was an even bigger bet. It’s like betting the company on Black,
then taking all your winnings and putting it on Black again. The 850 cost more than any previous industrial
project in Sweden and if it didn’t sell well, Volvo would be so heavily in debt it
would be finished. But it did sell – 1.2M cars in 9 years,
and Volvo created a successful product line that it sells to this day. This is the Volvo 850 Story. (music) The story of the 850, released in 1991, starts thirteen years before in 1978 while Volvo
was developing the 700 series. Despite little money to pour into new cars,
work began on a smaller companion to the 700 series. The new car, codenamed Project Galaxy wouldn’t
just be a new large car. It’d be shortened and used as a replacement
for Volvo’s 300 series, produced in the Netherlands and a product of Volvo’s initial
1972 investment in the DAF car and truck company. The smaller car would be codenamed G1, and
the larger G2. But the main problem Volvo faced with both
the G1 and the G2 was getting an effective engine and transmission package. Early on it’d been decided that both cars
would be front wheel drive. This would mean more space for passengers,
and was the direction competing cars were moving in, but it meant mounting the engine
transversely. So, the first problem was finding an engine
that would work in the smaller G1 yet give enough power for the G2. Volvo decided that despite its finances they
needed a new generation of engines, so kicked off the X-100 program to develop a 4-cylinder
engine with the flexibility to make it into a 5 or even a 6 cylinder. A new transverse engine would need a small
gearbox to fit into the tight engine bay. The manual gearbox was investigated first
– a 5-speed to keep up with the competition. There was no good solution from outside Volvo,
so it was decided to design one in-house. By 1980 Volvo had a rough prototype ready,
dubbed G4 that would be the father of both the smaller G1 and the larger G2. It was fitted with a 1.8L aluminium 4-cylinder
X-100 engine, plus the new gearbox. Later that year Volvo had refined the G4 into
the smaller G1 prototype, and the following year had developed a G2 prototype. Some of the design cues developed here would
be seen in the 1990 700 series facelift that would produce a family look for both cars. The gearbox was refined, using three separate
shafts to fit it into the small space, where most gearboxes at that time used only two
shafts. The Volvo 760 was launched in 1982 and its
immediate success would provide a much needed funding boost to kick Project Galaxy into
high gear. The X-100 engine needed refinement and needed
also to be larger than a 1.8L 4-cylinder to power a car as large as the G2. Volvo settled on a 5-cylinder, but a 6-cylinder
was also explored, with Volvo approaching Porsche to do the work. This didn’t work out, so it was actually
Volvo who completed the 6-cylinder, but they worked with Porsche on refining the engine
for production. To understand how that engine and gearbox
would work in the real car, they needed a mule to put it in. That is, a body and 4-wheels to test how it
would work. They found the perfect car to put it in – the
Chevrolet Citation. Although if you think about it, that’s a
bit of an odd name to call a car. A Citation is a court summons, something you
get if you’ve been pulled over by the police. It’s been estimated there are about 1M words
in the English language, and I’d like to think there’s probably 900,000 words that
would work better for a car name than “Citation”. But then what do I know? The Citation was the number 1 selling car
in 1980 when it launched in North America. So, Volvo found the perfect car, or at least
the perfect-sized car in the Citation. Its engine bay and front wheel drive layout
was an almost perfect match for Project Galaxy, so the car became the test vehicle to ensure
Volvo’s new engine and transmission would have the reliability Volvo were calling for. That was 200,000km without major work and
a car that would be on the road for 20 years. Volvo’s were known for their safety features,
and the company tried to make them the safest cars on the road. They were always looking for new ways to make
their cars safer, and Nils Bohlin headed a team to produce what would become known as
the Side Impact Protection System or SIPS. It included reinforcing structures within
the side body and energy absorbing materials within the doors. With it arriving too late to be included when
the 700 series was introduced, the Project Galaxy team decided it would launch on their
car. Volvo wanted a class-leading car when it came
to handling. They worked on developing the rear suspension
with a split rear axle. It would include bushings on the axle that
compressed under load, giving the car passive rear steering to help stability through fast
corners. With the X-100 engine and manual gearbox progressing
well, Volvo turned its attention to a new diesel that would round out the range, plus
an automatic gearbox. Like the manual, there wasn’t an automatic
already on the market that would fit into the small space Volvo had given themselves,
so a new one had to be built from scratch. And having one was imperative. Large luxury cars in 1980s needed an automatic
gearbox, especially in North America, Volvo’s key sales market, so if it couldn’t be built
the project couldn’t continue without major rework. Two competing designs of the automatic gearbox
were created. The first would only fit with 4-cylinder versions
of the X-100 engine, making it a non-starter given more 5 and 6-cylinder customers would
choose an automatic. The second design, by Aisin Warner, showed
promise and worked with all versions of the X-100, so Volvo went with this design. Volvo started work on the car’s styling
in 1983 with two competing prototypes, dubbed P1 and P2. Both designs had good bits in them, so a P3
amalgam was built. But this still wasn’t right, so Volvo chief
designer Jan Wilsgaard worked with Italian design house Carrozzeria Coggiola Torino to
refine it. By 1984 there was a driveable prototype. The car was driven on the test track, but
the team felt it needed further refinement to make it a fun, driveable car, so two further
prototypes were built. Jan Wilsaard presented the design as the B3
prototype, and it was well received. At the same time, Jan produced a C3 hatchback
concept based on the 700 series, and this would be developed into the C70 in 1996. Although progress was being made, it wasn’t
being made fast enough, certainly for Volvo management who were pumping money into the
project. They had little more than working prototypes
of the suspension, gearbox and engine. By 1985 the project had been running for 7
years and it wasn’t clear when the company could start selling the car. Jan Wilsgaard’s new designs certainly helped
the case to continue development, but with Volvo management betting the company on the
new car, like they had with the 700 series, the team knew that progress had to be made,
quickly. By the end of 1985 Volvo approved development
of the automatic gearbox, so the final package was set. And with ABS successfully added to the 700
series in 1984, it was decided that it would become standard feature of the new car, although
it would take until 1994 until that became true in all markets. New prototypes were built, and these were
tested not just in Sweden but also in North America. Some on the project still weren’t happy
with the driveability of the car, so it was decided to form the “Driving Pleasure Group”
to tackle this head-on. And with car design being such a male dominated
industry, a team would focus on redressing this to ensure women got enough input into
the final design. It was true Volvo wanted the car released
as soon as possible, but they also realised it had to be the right product. Car companies have one chance when a car’s
launched, and Volvo wisely did the due diligence up front to make it right. Volvo had the happy problem that it didn’t
have enough capacity in its Swedish factories to produce the new car, so it was decided
initial production would be at Volvo’s Ghent factory in Belgium. The team continued to refine the car with
new air conditioning and other luxury features needed to ensure the car could go toe to toe
with the competition. By 1988 further performance and reliability
testing was done in North America. Like in 1984, the press got wind of the test
and managed to get some spy shots of it in action. Volvo saw them, and what followed next was
a two-hour car chase to try and get those photos. After catching them the Volvo team tried to
buy the shots, but to no avail. There was another blow when 40 CAD designers in the
bodywork team were poached by another company. Volvo were left with a large hole in the team
and the bodywork manager was given a lot of latitude to find new people to keep the project
on track. The car was named the 850, with the “5”
standing for the 5-cylinder engine. With the 850 being smaller than the 700 series,
it was decided to rename the 700 series as the 900 series. It wasn’t the most logical naming system
and would be abandoned just 7 years later. The new X-100 engine, now called the Volvo
Modular Engine, broke cover first as a 6-cylinder in the newly renamed 960 in 1990. (cool rock music (!)) The saloon was unveiled in the summer of 1991. It’d taken 13 years to develop and was the
most expensive industrial project ever attempted in Sweden. The 850 was launched with the slogan “A
dynamic car with four unique innovations”. These were the Side Impact Protection System,
innovative rear suspension, front wheel drive and self-adjusting front seatbelts, that made
it much more comfortable for short and tall people. The car would have a choice of 5-cylinder
petrol engines between 2.0L and 2.4L, plus a 2.5L 5-cylinder diesel. Public and motor press reaction was very good,
and the car was an immediate hit. The Ghent factory was hard at work making
the new cars, and over time the car would also be produced in Sweden and Canada, and
even Indonesia and the Philippines as knock-down kits. Sales expanded to North America in 1992 and
at this time the all-important estate version was launched. 1994 brought a small facelift, really just
a small update of the front end. But the big news in 1994 was the launch of
the 850 Turbo version, giving this luxury cruiser a 0-60 time of just 7.1s. It was further refined in 1995 (and shown
in publicity photos in a yellow that didn’t do it any favours!) as the special edition
850 T-5R, giving an extra 18hp. Despite the additional weight of including
almost every option as standard, the car still got to 60 in 5.8s. It was replaced in 1996 with the 850 R.
Volvo further enhanced the car’s safety with the SIPS-Bag system in 1995. The 850 already included airbags, but this
introduced side-impact airbags, and it was the first mass-produced car to feature them. The 850 was raced in the mid-1990s, scoring some
race wins, but never becoming a breakout sensation. An AWD version appeared in 1996, further expanding
the range and reaching new customers. Ride height was increased with a newly developed
multilink rear axle with rear self-levelling suspension. Later in 1996 the whole Volvo range got a
name change. The 850 was renamed as the S70 saloon and
V70 estate, “V” standing for “Versatility”, and with the name change it got a mid-cycle
styling update. In keeping with the style of the time, the
corners were rounded off and the car received body-coloured trim and an updated interior. Volvo had been offering a compressed natural
gas version since the early 1990s, and this continued with the Bi-Fuel version. A bulky 95 litre tank was installed in the
boot, taking up valuable cargo space but offering up to 155 miles of additional range. Volvo launched a crossover version of the
V70 as the V70 XC or cross country in 1997. It used chunkier bumpers and a higher ride
height, plus AWD. This didn’t exactly put it in the Range
Rover category, but it was more than a match for the winter school run. And performance fans we happy to see new S70
and V70 R models that bumped the power output to 247hp and a 0-60 time of just 6.8 seconds. The car got a new generation of side airbags
in 1999 along with the WHIPS system which tried to reduce whiplash injuries. In fact, the car was generally improved all-round
with an improved automatic gearbox, ABS system, and drive-by-wire throttling system. Volvo group made more than cars, and the company
was always worried about financing its car division. As could be seen with the 850, producing a
competitive car was getting more and more expensive, which was leading car companies
to consolidate to share development costs. Volvo had an abortive bid to merge with Saab
in the late 1970s and explored selling off the car division to Renault in the early 1990s. With a sale always on the cards, Volvo sold
its car division to Ford in 1999, and with that the S70 and V70’s future lay in their
hands. In 2000 the S70 was discontinued, and saloon
customers now had to choose from the smaller S60 or larger S80. The V70 continued production with a new design
and it’s still being produced today. A big thank you to all my Patrons for supporting
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