Could Volvo be set to bring back the estate in V8 Supercars?

Volvo Polestar Racing could take advantage of the new 2017 V8 Supercars Championship technical regulations to field an estate car, based on the Volvo V60, bringing back to motorsport the famed shape with which they contested the 1994 British Touring Car Championship, reports Jalopnik.

The US motoring blog reports a source from within Volvo that has stated that the Swedish manufacturer hopes to switch to the V60 when the regulations are opened up in 2017, which are set to allow a variety of different bodyshapes which could include coupes, as well as allowing smaller engines and removing the requirement to run a V8 configuration engine.

The Volvo V60 could join a very different looking grid in 2017, with coupes also set to be permitted which would allow cars such as the Ford Mustang in, although with Ford’s withdrawal from the championship, whether the marque continues to be present on the grid remains in question. Nissan could switch to the GTR, their primary sports model, and with the impending closure of the Holden Commodore’s production lines, a Chevrolet-based car such as the Cruze, Camaro or Impala could be the future of the red lion’s competition in the sport.

Volvo has been fielding the S60 as its principal motorsport model in recent years in both V8 Supercars and the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, after the previous C30 model ceased production.

Most recently, Team Dynamics fielded an estate model of the Honda Civic in the 2014 British Touring Car Championship for drivers Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden, though it proved to be one of the less successful seasons for the Honda factory team in recent years, who’ve now switched to the more racy Type-R model for this season.