Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesper OH
My point too, but lacking the words.
To lead the thread back on track I would like to ask about the Ruedi Eggenberger year, 1985. By then the Swiss was an aknowledged master of both the European championship and Group A regulations with some kind of inside look at BMW Motorsport. Hired by Volvo he brought home the '85 drivers title with Gianfranco Brancatelli and Thomas Lindström (but lost the division 3 manufactures title to arch rival Rover), but felt strangled by interference by Volvo Motorsport in Göteborg/Gothenburg and left at a late stage before the 1986 season to join Ford.
From the Group 2 days Eggenberger had fielded cars under the BMW Italia name as well as under his own Eggenberger Motorsport and still did so by 1984. But when did Volvo approach him about 1985 and when was a deal signed? Eggenberger retained the driving services of Gianfranco Brancatelli and Sigi Müller junior into the new season.
For 1985 Volvo Motorsport seems to have streamlined their ETCC from four semi factory cars of 1984 to two factory cars and a semi-privateer car in 1985.
The Belgian Guy Trigaux/Michel Delcourt two car effort was axed but Pierre Diedonné employed as new Eggenberger driver partnering Müller (vaguely remembering this to be a reunion!). Of the two Swedish teams, the Thomas Lindström father-and-son effort was "rested" for '85 with cars sold off to Finland and Portugal and Thomas moving to the Eggenberger team too. Magnum Racing of Magnus Magnusson was retained on a semi-factory basis with continuing with Ulf Granberg as main driver, supported variously by Anders Olofsson and Ingvar Carlsson but also others.
Eggenberger Motorsport seemed to be a relative prolific car builder during the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth days that followed in a few years, and looking at the numbers of CiBiEmme Sport BMW 635CSi in former BMW Italia-colours racing alongside the Swiss Volvos would suggest that a fair few of these were build too. But how many Volvos were build for and during 1985? I have seen no reference to Eggenberger Volvos being ex-something or for that matter that later Volvos were ex-Eggenberger. Did RAS Sport build their own cars - they had little time to do so as I understand it - or was this rejigged Eggenberger cars, as an example.
Hope this question will get things back on track
Jesper
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Hi Jesper,
It was like this, late in 1984 Eggenberger had noticed the Volvo to be a strong opponent in group-A and there for the put in an interest to Volvo late in 1984, to manage a factoryteam. And in the winter of 1984 Volvo Dealer Europé signed Eggenberger and the work begun to forming the European Volvo Dealer Team/Eggenberger Motorsport team. The thing was that Eggenberger was hired by Volvo Dealer Team Europé and not Volvo itself, Volvo only provided with two cars that Eggenberger built for the ETC 1985. And late in 1985 when Volvo and Eggenberger went separate ways its was due to a violation to the contract Eggenberger had signed according to Volvo, the contract said that the Eggenberger team must use the WTT-system (Water-Turbo-Traction), which he didn't cause he found the WTT-system to fail and due to that some races said to be lost. Eggenberger on the other hand wished to renew his contract but Volvo turned him down due to this what Volvo called a violation to the contract.
the Thomas Lindström father-and-son effort continued in the Eggenberger team to. And even so in 1986 when Thomas was in the R.A.S team.
Like mentioned before, there were only 2 cars built (the rumor says 3, however never confirmed) for the Eggenberger team 1985 and one for the Magnum Racing team, so 4 at the most. And correct, the R.A.S team took over and rebuilt the former Eggenberger Volvos from 1985 to race with in 1986, the R.A.S team also took over the former Magnum Racing Volvo (the one that rest at ease today in the Volvo Museum in Göteborg/Gothenburg). But R.A.S also built a 4th Volvo, a RH car, this car was tested but it was to hard on the drivers on so such short time to learn how to drive RH so the car was sold to Australia, to the Australia Volvo Dealer Team (AVDT) in 1986.
The Magnum Racing Volvo team was a team directly under Volvo/Volvo Motorsport and was managed by Mats "Lillen" Magnusson. They also used
the WTT-system according to contract. So the Magnum Racing team was in fact a Factoryteam, the Volvo Magnum Racing used in 1985 was the former and newbuilt LUNA-Sportpromotion Volvo from 1984 (Magnum Racing was the one that built that Volvo in 1984).
Maby I forgot to answer something but I hope that I was to any help!
And things got back on track, but I don't like people who only open their mouths and try to be clever and stupid at the same time.
So the prototype of the 1:18 scale Volvo had some things that was incorrect, so why must someone start to complain about this? It is still
the prototype not the final model that is to be released on the market.
The things that are incorrect will be corrected with the final model.