Despite denials from the Swedish manufacturer, speculation is intensifying that they will pair up with Garry Rogers Motorsport to launch an assault on the championship.

Motoring website motoring.com.au is reporting the deal is all but done, pending final board approval.

The move would see Volvo become the fifth manufacturer in the V8 Supercars championship, after Nissan and Erebus-built Mercedes arrived on the grid this year.

It is anticipated they will use the Volvo S60, the June 17 date marking the Australian media launch of the sedan’s high-performance variant, the S60 Polestar.

Although the Polestar road car will be four-wheel-drive powered a six-cylinder engine, the racecar would have to feature the traditional normally-aspirated V8 powerplant dictated by V8 Supercars rules in a rear-wheel-drive format.

However, V8 Supercars’s new Car of the Future platform – which sees all cars in the field sharing the same basic chassis layout with differing engines and bodywork – will allow them to make the necessary changes.

If Volvo elect not to build their own V8 engine, there is still a ‘generic’ engine based on a Chevrolet LS3 block that V8 Supercars could make available for their use.

The S60 is currently used in motorsport both in Scandanavia and in the United States.

K-Pax Racing race two S60s in the Pirelli World Challenge – which raced on the support card at V8 Supercars recent US debut at the Circuit of The Americas – powered by a turbocharged 5-cylinder engine.

Volvo’s S60 is also raced in the Swedish Touring Car Championship and the TTA Racing Elite League by the factory-backed Polestar operation.

Both Volvo and Garry Rogers have so far denied all suggestions of a planned V8 Supercars entry.