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Originally Posted by chunterer
Don't worry, it'll come i'm sure. There's plenty of Group A fans on 10-10ths!!
Well regarding the prospective British entry I seem to recall it being reported that one car was rumoured to be entering in either 1985 or 1986. I can't remember the exact detail of the stories but either John Maguire or Julian May might have been the names connected with possibly Patrick Watts or someone like that as a driver. The car wouldn't have been new but I believe sourced from Sweden, not Eggenberger.
However I suspect that the names of the entrants and drivers are not accurate!!
It may just have been speculation at the time as it never materialised - I was gutted as at that time the series struggled for quality and quantity so any additional competitive entries would have been brilliant!!
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The Volvos I suspect were always a bit of a mystery to British fans- we never saw them over here other than at the ETCC rounds, and so I guess they were maybe regarded something slightly exotic compared to the Rovers etc we saw in the BTCC- after all, we even managed a Maserati Biturbo in the BTCC, but never a Volvo....
Certainly I knew comparitively little about them until discovering Bjorn's website, which I've dipped into a couple of times, but really need to work through. I saw the ETCC rounds at either, or occasionally both, Silverstone and Donington from 1985-8, so remember seeing the Eggenberger cars in 85 and the RAS Sport ones in 86, but not that many more. Looking at DTM and Anderstorp ETCC results from the period, there seemed to be loads of them in Sweden and Germany, and even one or two in Portugal but we never seemed to hear much about those over here
Apart from the works cars, I only really remember the 'Luna' car (Anders Olofsson/Ulf Granberg as I recall in 85?) and a couple of privateer entries at Donington in 1985- a white Magnum Racing example, with Slim Borgudd on board amongst others
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-05-05-029.jpg
and the car leased by Charlie O'Brien etc, entered under the 'Erle McRae Racing' banner.
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-05-05-017.jpg
That 'Erle McRae' entry particularly intrigues me- why the Australians turned up for a one-off BTCC outing (I seem to recall reading somewhere that it may have been connected with the deal to buy a Sytner BMW or two?), and how they came to appear in a Volvo?
If they were going to Donington to put together a deal on a 635 from Sytner, why did they lease a Volvo for the race?- Sweden seems a long way to go for a pair of Australians to lease a car for a one-off race at Donington- Was it a car already entered and they took the opportunity to rent a ride in the Volvo, or, more interestingly, was something more ambitious involved- ie, apart from talking to Sytner, had they also been talking to the Swedish outfit (which one?) about buying a Volvo for Bathurst?