Rickard Rydell (born 22 September 1967) is a Swedish retired racing driver. He won the 1998 British Touring Car Championship, the 2011 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and has also been a frontrunner in the European/World Touring Car Championship. Rydell's first year in the BTCC was 1994, when his car was quite distinctive, driving a Volvo 850 Estate, when it was normal to race saloons. The TWR team switched to a saloon in 1995 and Rydell took pole for 13 of the 24 races, but due to several slow starts he won only four times and he finished on podium seven times. At the end of the year he was third in the championship, a result repeated in 1996 although Audi dominated with Frank Biela he was able to score four victories and six podiums. In 1997 Volvo switch from 850 saloon to new model Volvo S40, at the end of year he was fourth with one victory and five podiums. In 1998, he finally won the BTCC title in a Volvo with five victories and 12 podiums, beating Anthony Reid at the final meeting. We celebrate his birthday with a scale model of a racing Volvo 850 estate …