If the BTCC championship was decided by the amount of press coverage an individual car received over a season, then the Volvo 850 Estate would have won the title before it ever turned a wheel. For many, the idea of racing an estate car was laughable but for Volvo it would provide them with the level of media exposure they were looking for. Most thought that the estate model was purely a sales gimmick dreamt up by the clever marketing team within Volvo, but BTCC folklore suggests that the estate concept did not originate within Volvo but rather as the result of a chance circumstance during the early stages of the 850 project.

In 1992, Volvo Senior Vice President Martin Rybeck looked at improving the image of Volvo cars by returning the marque back to motorsport, which they had quit in 1987. He decided that the BTCC was the obvious place to launch a return but his fellow board members needed convincing that the rather large 850 was up to the job. Rybeck therefore commissioned a prototype 850 to be built by long term Volvo specialist Steffanson Automotive (SAM) to prove it could be turned into a competitive race car.

Volvo provided SAM with suitable technical resources and asked them to collect an engine and bodyshell on which to base their prototype. However, the day SAM came to collect them from the factory only estates were being built, so rather than delay the start of the project they decided to use the estate bodyshell instead.

When Rybeck heard what had happened he immediately realised that the marketing potential for racing an estate would be massive, but he was keen to ensure that racing the estate would not be a failure compared to the saloon version.