Robert Dahlgren will race for the new Volvo Polestar Racing team in the 2014 V8 Supercars Championship, joining Scott McLaughlin at the team which was previously known as Garry Rogers Motorsport.

Volvo will become the fourth official manufacturer on the grid, and the fifth competing car brand in Australia’s premier motorsport series this year, with Dahlgren moving to Australia to continue driving for an 11th year with Volvo, after racing for the Swedish manufacturer in the Scandinavian and World Touring Car Championships in recent years, effectively replacing Frenchman Alexandre Prémat at Garry Rogers’ team.

“I am really happy to be joining Volvo Polestar Racing in V8 Supercars, it is a dream come true for me,” said Dahlgren.

“The V8 Supercars is a championship like no other in the world and one that every racing driver wants to race in. I will be facing experienced and fast drivers who know the Championship and circuits inside out, but I am looking forward to the challenge – it’s definitely one of the biggest of my career.”

Dahlgren finished third in last year’s Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and fifth in the TTA Racing Elite League series the previous year in the team’s Volvo S60.

In 2011, Dahlgren competed in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, as Volvo evaluated a potential entry in the Championship with a single Volvo C30 1.6T, but with the new engine not available until the fifth round at the Czech Republic, the programme was more a development season than a direct fight against the heavily developed Chevrolet team.

The 34-year-old’s previous motor-racing experience includes success in single-seaters, winning in the Formula Ford Sweden and UK championships in 1998 and 2001, as well as the inaugural Scandinavian Touring Car Cup in 2010, finishing as runner-up in the competitive 2010 Swedish Touring Car Championship season, just two points behind four-time champion Richard Göransson.

“We are happy to have Robert join our Volvo Polestar Racing outfit in Australia,” said Derek Crabb, Motorsport Director of Volvo Cars. “His experience of developing racing cars is vast, something that will be very useful in his and our first year in the very competitive and exciting V8 Supercars.”