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Volvo Could Be Buying Polestar To Exit Motorsport
by
Mark Stevenson
(IC: employee)
Published: July 14th, 2015
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The fraternity of automotive journalism was atwitter when blue Polestar Volvos arrived at the Chicago auto show last year. While the cars delivered increased performance and looks to match, Polestar also gave the high-performance Swedish offerings credibility with racing programs in Scandinavia (STCC) and Australia (V8 Supercars).It’s no secret, though, that Volvo’s marketing head, Alain Visser, sees no future for the brand in motorsport. Purchasing Polestar might be the Swedish manufacturer’s way of ending at least one of its racing contracts while still holding on to the blue-hot Polestar brand.Speaking with Swedish media late last year, Visser plainly stated, “Motorsport does not conform with our brand, where we stand for smaller engines and safety. We are therefore pulling out of STCC, for example, as soon as the contracts permits.” This goes along with Volvo’s official statement this morning where the only mention of Volvo’s motorsport involvement with Polestar is the automaker intention to not purchase the racing part of the Polestar organization. That’s it. Nothing is mentioned regarding the successes shared by the two parties in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship or V8 Supercars Australia.But, what exactly is Polestar, anyway?Polestar can be split into three distinct parts: the racing team contesting both STCC and V8 Supercars series; Polestar Performance AB, which makes go-fast aftermarket parts for Volvos; and Polestar Holding AB, the owner of all of Polestar’s trademarks.Volvo, in their effort to exit racing, has chosen to purchase the last two, opting to leave now-former Polestar owner Christian Dahl with the racing team that will be renamed later.This is a clever move by Volvo. It allows the company to continue its use of the Polestar name and also retain engineers and other knowledge at Polestar for future branded models while no longer having to fund the expensive endeavors of motorsport. By purchasing Polestar, Volvo can effectively end the contract it now has with itself. Christian Dahl is then free to continue his passion for racing, funded by a Viking Karve-sized load of cash from the Chinese.Will Polestar be as successful now that its motorsport links have now become heritage? We will just have to wait and see.
#Acquisitions
#AftermarketParts
#AlainVisser
#Chinese
#ChristianDahl
#Motorsport
#Polestar
#Racing
#Stcc
#TouringCars
#Volvo
#V8Supercars
Mark Stevenson
More by Mark Stevenson
Published July 14th, 2015 12:00 PM
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Most racing series that I know of are very keen on smaller engines and safety.
An irrelevant automaker buys an irrelevant performance group, to form an irrelevant automaker with body skirts and none of the performance from the performance group. There's got to be a cheaper way to get engineers, the engineers that worked building V8s and performance features, probably don't give a damn about electric cars and "mass-market" gerbil engines. So unless Volvo is planning some big raises and great benefits, what's to keep polestar a worthwhile venture? The name certainly doesn't mean anything to 99.9% of potential Volvo buyers.