What became Volvo’s factory-backed 240 Turbo Group A program in the mid-1980s actually began with several private initiatives. The model both surprised and shook things up once it started showing real pace, performing well on the European motorsport scene.
In that sense, the auction car is a pioneer: it originally started life as a Volvo Turbo Cup car in 1982, part of a one-make series designed to promote Volvo’s long-awaited 240 Turbo model. The owner competed for the full season and, like a few others at the time (probably including Volvo themselves), began to wonder whether the 240 Turbo could be competitive in Group A, the major international touring car class of the era. The then—and still—owner, Sportpromotion and Greger Petterson, commissioned Magnum Racing to build a proper Group A engine, installed it in his Turbo Cup car, and entered the car together with the internationally known Anders Olofsson and Peggen Andersson in the Silverstone Tourist Trophy 500, the final round of that year’s European Touring Car Championship. The organizers were so amused that someone wanted to race the boxy 240 that they waived the entry fee, and Avon Tyres stepped in with tire sponsorship. In the race itself the engine failed, but the car nonetheless appears in the official entry lists as an intriguing Swedish pioneer.
The auction car no longer carries that first Group A engine, nor the turbocharged unit from its Cup years. Today it is fitted with a Köhler-tuned B23 with twin Weber 48s, built for endurance racing reliability and producing around 250 hp. According to Köhler Racing, recreating a correct Turbo Cup engine and restoring the car to Cup specification would be relatively straightforward should a buyer wish to do so.
By the following year, 1983, there were already three or four privately entered Swedish Group A 240s competing in the ETCC. The ball was rolling, and the rest is a legendary and important part of Volvo’s motorsport history.
To the auction: https://bilwebauctions.se/en/septemberauktion-2-2025/volvo-240-turbo-cup-54312
