When the 850 was launched 13 years later, it broke completely with how Volvo cars had been made before: it was the first large model with front-wheel drive, a transverse five-cylinder engine, a technically innovative gearbox, a clever rear axle, and an integrated protection system with side airbags.

The light yellow 850 T-5R on display at the World of Volvo is from 1995. It's one from the series of 2,537 numbered, turbocharged, 240-horsepower yellow cars. Sweden was allocated 321 of them, quickly earning the nickname T-yellow.

In April 1978, the newly appointed CEO of Volvo Cars, Håkan Frisinger, called a meeting with some key personnel in a small conference room at Sörredsgården in Gothenburg. Both the head of product planning, Dan Werbin, and the project manager for the upcoming 760 model, Hans Gustavsson, attended. The meeting took place against a dark background: the second oil crisis had just passed, the merger with Saab had failed, the state had refused Volvo a conditional loan of one billion SEK, a government investigation stated that the Swedish car industry could only survive if it manufactured small and cheaper cars - and in the USA, Volvo had a few years earlier suffered from a large inventory record of unsold cars.

Securing the future

Against this background, discussions about future cars should still take place, and this time it was really about the future. Håkan Frisinger started the meeting by urging his employees to forget today's problems for a moment - and continued: "Now it's time to look at least ten years ahead. Despite the tough economic situation, we must prepare ourselves, we must assume that Volvo Cars will succeed. And thereby also survive." Frisinger concluded with yet another call: "Let's use the 80s to turn the negative trend around and instead make ourselves really strong - product-wise, competence-wise, quality-wise, organizationally, and also industrially."

Industrialization

The meeting marked the start of the development of both the 400 series and the 800 series. But even though Håkan Frisinger pointed out the direction as early as 1978, the concrete 850 project didn't start until 1986. This involved both industrialization - the car was initially only to be manufactured in Ghent, Belgium, while the engine and gearbox were assembled in Skövde - and designing a completely new car model from scratch. It also had to break completely with how Volvo cars had been made before. The new model was to have front-wheel drive, for the first time in a large Volvo model, and a transverse five-cylinder engine, also completely new. A transverse engine is the most efficient solution for providing good cabin space. It also offers the best opportunities for reducing emissions, as they are released on the same side and can be directed to the catalytic converter without energy and heat loss.

Transverse 5-cylinder

Most volume car manufacturers have opted for a four-cylinder engine, something Volvo also chose for the 400 series. But in the larger 850, Volvo's engineers wanted a volume of 2.5 litres to meet torque and agility requirements. However, increasing the size to over two litres with a four-cylinder engine causes vibrations, something that would require balance shafts, an expensive and complicated solution. A common alternative is then to install a V6 engine transversely, but Volvo opted for a bolder strategy and invested in a five-cylinder aluminium engine. It was based on the six-cylinder three-litre engine with 204 hp launched in the 960 model as early as 1990. For the 850, the engineers simply removed one cylinder, the volume became 2.5 litres, and the power in the first version was 170 hp.

Three-axle gearbox

Since the engine takes up a lot of space, an innovation is also required for the gearbox. Usually, a manual gearbox has two axles, a primary (output) and a secondary intermediate shaft. Volvo's engineers now instead designed a gearbox with three axles, two of which are secondary. This makes it very short, only 353 millimetres. The weight is also low: 46 kilos. This ingenious gearbox requires almost no service, such as no oil change.

Side crash protection

The engine and gearbox are two of the world news that receive great attention at the premiere in June 1991. The others are the self-designed Delta rear axle, which manages to combine comfort with very good driving characteristics without stealing a lot of space, and the self-adjusting belt at the front seats. The newly launched integrated side impact protection system (SIPS) is standard. It is an advanced system that absorbs crash energy in various ways in the event of a side impact. The door pillar, seat tubes, bars under the seats, and a box between the seats - called the SIPS box - work together to reduce the consequences of intrusion from a colliding car. The idea for SIPS originally came from Nils Bohlin, the man behind Volvo's three-point safety belt, who patented the concept as early as 1974. Four years after the introduction, side airbags are also introduced in the seatbacks.

Wilsgaard's last

The design of the 850 is done by Jan Wilsgaard, his last project at Volvo, after working for the company since 1950. Many react to the fact that the car doesn't look particularly new, but rather closely follows the design language of the 700 series. But it's intentional. Volvo's management realizes that the revolution under the body is so significant that customers probably won't be able to handle completely new shapes for a Volvo. This time too, Wilsgaard receives help from the Italian design firm Coggiola, resulting, among other things, in slightly rounder shapes than in the first proposal. The major design changes for Volvo's models instead take place under the new design chief Peter Horbury with the S40 (1995) and especially the S80 (1998).

T-Yellow succeeds

Less than two years after the premiere of the 850, the estate car arrives, which becomes the Swedish customers' favourite. A simpler version of the five-cylinder engine with two valves per cylinder also arrives, as does a five-cylinder diesel, bought from Volkswagen. Very talked about is the T-yellow (TR-5), launched in 1995. With 240 hp, T-yellow is the most powerful car Volvo has manufactured. Originally, only 2,500 light yellow examples were to be made. It became 2,537, of which 321 cars were allocated to the Swedish market. An ad said: "We're not trying to sell this car to you, we're just letting you know it exists." That was enough. The sales pressure was so intense that 2,516 black and 1,911 green cars were also made with the same specifications. All numbered.

Manor wagon racing

To further sharpen its sporty image, Volvo participates the year prior in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), in collaboration with Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). Volvo surprises everyone by entering two estate cars. Behind the wheel of one car sits the Swede Rickard Rydell, while Jan Lammers from the Netherlands drives the other. But after only one season, the rules are changed in a way that stops estate cars. 850 manages to become Volvo's first four-wheel-drive passenger car in 1996, before the model is updated in 1997 and renamed S70/V70.