Welcome to the Volvo 850 website!
Volvo 850 Estate Tuned
The Volvo 850 meant a big change for the Swedish car maker. It was considered to be one of the greatest engineering endeavours ever performed in Sweden. The Volvo 850 was the first Volvo with front-wheel drive, and was meant to combine a modern and timeless design with sportive looks and performance, and top notch safety features. And considering the high number of Volvo 850′s that are still driving around, we can assume that they succeeded in that.
Volvo 850 Models
Volvo sold its 850 both as a saloon or sedan, with typenumber 854 and as an estate or wagon model, with typenumber 855. All models featured an all-aluminium alloy straight-five engine, but in different setups, for different performance and mileage.
Possible engines were:
- 2 litre 10 valve
- Power: 126 hp (93 kW)@6100 rpm
- Torque: 170 N·m @4800 rpm
Volvo 850 Engine
- 2 litre 20 valve
- Power: 143 hp (105 kW) @6500 rpm
- Torque: 136 ft·lbf (184 N·m)
- 2 litre Turbo 20 valve
- Power: 225 hp (166 kW)@5400 rpm
- Torque: 300 N·m @1900 rpm
- 2.5 litre 10 valve
- Power: 144 hp (106 kW) @5400 rpm
- Torque: 206 N·m @3600 rpm
- 2.5 litre 20 valve
- Power: 170 hp (125 kW)@6200 rpm
- Torque: 220 N·m @3300 rpm
- 2.5 litre Turbo
- Power: 225 hp (166 kW)@5200 rpm
- Torque: 300 N·m @2000 rpm
- 2.5 litre TDI Diesel (produced by Volkswagen)
- Power: 140 hp (103 kW)
- Torque: 290 N·m
In order to promote the 850, Volvo prepared some cars for the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), which yielded some pretty good results even. Alot of the specialized racing technique that was used in these BTTC-prepped cars, was also used in the Volvo 850 top sport model, the Volvo 850 R. Due to the high performance, and yet still discrete looks, these R versions were very popular at police forces all over the world as chasing cars.
The top model of the Volvo 850, the R, or the T5-R are also very popular for tuners, since these already high-powered turbo engines can easily be tuned to deliver over 300hp, and even more!
Safety and Engineering
Volvo and safety go hand it hand. Always have, always will. The Volvo 850 isn’t an
Volvo 850 Rickard Rydell 1996 BTCC
exception on that matter, on the contrary, it was an exceptional car with regards to safety for that time. It was the first car to feature airbags for sideway collisions, the so called Side Impact Protection System (SIPS). It had special extra bars in the doors for extra impact protection and self regulating safety belts with explosives to decrease the chances of injuries due to the safety belt. Even more, the safety belts in the Volvo 850, and the engineering of the cockpit were so well done, that a passenger airbag wasn’t even necessary, and not included in the earlier models. However, in the later modelyears, they did include it due to marketing reasons.
Another great example of the tremendous engineering effort that was put into the Volvo 850 is the Cd value (measure of aerodynamics) of the car. Typical values for average modern automobiles are between 0.30 and 0.35, were SUV’s (due to their more boxy design) have a Cd value (drag coefficient) of 0.40 up to 0.45 (so lower is better). The Volvo 850, produced in 1992, sported a wooping Cd of 0.31! Making it one of the more efficient cars on the road, even despite its old age and boxy design! Other cars with this Cd value are the 2009 BMW 7 Series, and the Lamborghini Diablo.
The 850 also has a very tight turning circle of only 10.2 m (33.5 ft), and therefor is very maneuverable. To compare, later large Volvos such as the V70 had a 11.9 m (39.0 ft) turning circle, which is closer to the average turning circle of this type of cars.
Successors
Cream Yellow Volvo 850 T-5R Sedan
The incredibly popular Volvo 850 had a namechange in 1997, in order to comply with Volvo’s new naming strategy, depending on size and body type. The new names included a number, which corresponds to the size of the car, and a letter, which corresponds to the body type of the car. The 850 was thought to be a size 70 car, and the letters of the body types were V (for Versatility), S (for Saloon), and C (for the new Coupé). Together with a bit more modern design (less square edges, more rounded corners), and about 1800 other small changes, the Volvo S70, the Volvo V70 and the Volvo C70 where born.
Due to the high resemblance to the Volvo 850, these were refered to as the Volvo V70/S70 Classic. In 2000, the Volvo S70/V70 Classic was replaced by the Volvo V70 and S80 of the second generation, which featured the typical curvy profile with the more aggresive front.
Many Volvo lovers will tell you though that the Volvo 850 or Volvo V70/S70 Classic, are the last real Volvo’s ever made, due to the selling of Volvo to Ford.
