Quote:
Originally Posted by E.B
One thing I forgot to say was Mark Petch (who posts here) might be the best source of factual info, as he started the Volvo Ball rolling down under, albeit a couple of years before.
AFAIK he sold his cars to Volvo Aus and they (3?) went back to Sweden when Volvo gave it away after the 86 season.... where they were all redistributed to other Volvo Teams around Scandanavia (one to Finland where I think it won the TC Championship and another to Sweden (Steffansson Automotive).
What other perhaps locally built cars there were I have no idea, or what car / the story is behind the U-bix backed one Tulloch and Croft drove at the October 87 Pukekohe Benson & Hedges 500. Perhaps something to do with Soderqvist Racesport who Tulloch drove as I mentioned in Enduros for (ie Wellington 500 with Per-Gunnar Andersson also in October 87.
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Many years late I know, but until last year, I had little interest in my relatively short Volvo era, which sadly ended with a great deal of acrimony between myself and John Sheppard, and perhaps understandably poisoned my memories of that short, but rather colourful 18 months period of my 55 year old motorsport career.
However, in reflection, and with much prompting by Bjorn Ohlson, who has amassed a tremendous history of the 240T GPA era, I started to think long and hard about the reason I bought the car in the first place, one thing led to another, and as I poured through old records, I realised that it was in fact my Volvo that brought about the change from me driving my own race cars, to becoming a team owner.
It seem rather odd now but I had almost completely forgotten that Robbie Francevic and I won the 1985/86 Benson and Hedges New Zealand Endurance Series Championship in that car, winning 2 out of the 3 races and finishing an exhausting 2nd at the Baypark round in sweltering heat.
Having never driven a race car since my last NZ National Championship win in 1989 when I won the under 2.5 litre Touring car class in my ex JPS BMW 325 car, I decided that if I could buy back my own original ex GTM Volvo 240T that I would like to get back behind the wheel once again nearly 26 years later.
I contacted the daughter of the late Peter Kroeber who had restored my car to a better than new condition and arranged to visit her and view the car, even though she told me that it was definitely not for sale. Although I was unable to buy the car, I was very glad that I made the decision to go to Germany, view the car and talk to Saskia, as I was inspired to then look for another genuine ex works Volvo 240T racecar that I might be able to buy as a substitute.
Bjorn had also invited me to the 30 year celebration of the historic 1985 ETCC win by my good friend Gianfranco Brancatelli and Thomas Linstrom, so the decision was made that we would go to Germany first and then on up to Sweden etc. Little did I realise that I would come across another Volvo 240T GpA car that I was directly responsible for, and that car was the ex AVDT right hand drive GpA car assembled in Australia, using my own spare body shell that I had sold along with everything else when Bob Atkins, the then President of the Australian Volvo Dealer's Association, and I hatched up the plan to form an Australian Volvo Dealer team.
There has been many mistruths spoken about what happened and what did not happen, but the employment of John Sheppard happened after Bob and I were successful in getting the AVDT signed off by both Volvo Sweden and Volvo Australia. It also has be remembered that unlike most Team managers and or owners that motor racing was a hobby for me not a career, I had a very successful business in mechanical seal's with 3 branches in Australia and 3 in New Zealand as well as our own office and staff in Indonesia. So it was agreed by Bob and I that we would need to hire a suitable person to run the AVDT on a day to day basis, and John Sheppard's name was thrown into the hat. I vaguely new John because he worked for my close friends the Geoghegan brothers. I rand Pete and Leo and they both said that John was a top bloke etc, so we hired John, and that was more or less the beginning of the end really.
John soon realised that he could by pass me and go straight to Bob on the pretext that he could not get hold of me etc and Bob would give him the nod to do pretty much what ever he wanted. Sheppard and I bothy went to Monza to the winter test of the new RAS team with their ex Eggenburger race cars and the T car ex Thomas Lindstrom car that was used extensively by Eggenburger for testing early 1985. The T car had been converted to right hand drive because the now famous Belgium engineer Claude Rouelle who was working for RAS theorised that as the most of the circuits in Europe were clockwise that there was an advantage to be had by having the drivers weight on the inside of the majority of corners, which is why the team had chosen to hire Monza for 2 solid days, of testing.
After none of the test drivers could improve their lap times in the RHD car, we were offered the car, and jumped at the opportunity to airfreight it down to Australia in time for the 5th round of the ATCC at Adelaide.
We also arranged to purchase a complete GpA car kit of the very latest VMS, Volvo Motor Sport, including all the new lightweight parts etc, so that we could build up a "sister car" to the ex RAS RHD car, back in Australia, using my spare body shell, that was absorbed into the AVDT. Shortly after the arrival of all the parts in early July 1985, I had heated words with John and asked Bob to consider sacking him and appoint Les Small to take over the team. A hurried meeting took place in Sydney at Volvo Australia on the 10th July and an offer was made to pay me out of the contract, and under the circumstances I made a decision to take the money and run.
I don't regret that decision because history proved that my fears were right, and that John Sheppard views and mine were incompatible at the best of times, i shall say no more on that subject.
The irony of all that, is that I met and saw the Norwegian Thor Rustad who had spent 6 years and 2,476 rebuilding the very same AVDT car that was assembled in Australia for the exclusive use of John Bowe for Sandown and Bathurst in late 1986 with Alfie Costanzo, and to be JB's car for the 1987 season, which of course never happened.
The car led the Sandown 500 before rear suspension failure, and ran as high as 2nd at Bathurst before again failing with rear suspension failure. However, back in Sweden in the hands of Peggen Anderson the near new car dominated the 1987 Swedish Championship and went on to win many more races before be lost for some 16 years before being found and purchased by Thor Rustad.
Cutting to the quick I have now purchased this car and its due in New Zealand in the next few day's, and I have to say I am very excited about getting back behind the wheel of a Volvo 240T car after some 30 years, since Robbie and I took out the Benson and Hedges Endurance Championship.
Mark Petch.