Volvo in-house tuner Polestar is about to be morphed into a standalone brand for high-performance electrified cars.

Volvo announced the shakeup in June and at the time said to expect a major announcement regarding Polestar’s future in October. Word on the street is that we’ll see a concept previewing the first of Polestar’s new models.

As September draws to a close, Polestar has bid farewell to the Volvo era via a bittersweet post on its Instagram page. The words “The End” signal the conclusion of the direct association between Volvo and Polestar dating back almost two decades.

Polestar actually started out life in the 1990s as the racing team Flash Engineering. The team competed with Volvo-based cars in touring car events and was rebranded Polestar in 2004 when taken over by Christian Dahl.

In 2010, Polestar, with Volvo’s blessing, built a high-performance road car concept based on the C30 to gauge whether there was interest for sporty Volvos. Three years later, the first Polestar-tuned Volvos went on sale: the Volvo S60 and V60 Polestar.

The cars proved a hit and in 2015 Volvo decided to buy the Polestar brand from Dahl and move the tuning business in-house. As part of the deal, Dahl kept the racing team which he rebranded Cyan Racing.

We’re now on the cusp of the next chapter in Polestar’s exciting journey. The brand is now led by Thomas Ingenlath, former design boss for Volvo, and sits alongside Volvo, Lynk & Co. and Lotus in Chinese automaker Geely’s portfolio of global brands. The good news is that there will still be Polestar-tuned Volvos. Only now the cars will be marketed under the Polestar Engineered label.