Motorsport: GRM gives up Volvo battle, moves back to Holden

James Moffat drives the #34 Wilson Security Racing GRM Volvo S60. Photo / Getty Images

Garry Rogers Motorsport will run two Holdens in this year's Supercars championship with Garth Tander and James Moffat behind the wheel.

The team's long-running dispute with Volvo has come to an end with Rogers opting to build two Holdens to run in 2017 rather than continue to fight the Swedish manufacturer for the right to use the cars they've entered the past three seasons.

"Following the factory withdrawal our plan was to still utilise the Volvo, which we had invested thousands of man hours and obviously a considerable financial sum to first design, develop, build and homologate, but the hurdle that we encountered was engine supply," Rogers said in a statement.

"I know that there was talk of us potentially running a generic Supercar engine (Chev) in the Volvo S60, but this did not sit well with me.

"Over the years I have competed in many different categories but the two main categories have been Touring Car Racing (Supercars) and Sports Sedans.

"Having tried extremely hard to secure the Volvo V8 engines that had been developed and built in Sweden, which had absolutely no use except in Supercar racing, we ultimately failed. The choice that I was left with was "do we run the Volvo chassis with a Chev engine?

"I like to think that as much as I am getting on in years I am also a "modern thinker", but also a traditionalist. The traditionalist in me knew it was not the right thing to run a Chev engine in a Volvo chassis in a Touring Car category.

"Having exhausted all potential avenues, including offering to buy the Volvo engines I felt as though I had two choices. One was to say "well the last 50 odd years have been great, but it's time to give it away". This thought barely entered my mind, as I truly love what I do and I admire and respect every one of my 34 employees. The second option was to build two new cars.

"This decision was made in early December, and we have been absolutely flat out ever since."

The season begins in early March with the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.