Oct 4: The Shooting Brake

Finally North America looks to be getting their own shooting brake. Ok, you ask, what is a "shooting brake". Well, the answer is a bit of a mish mash, but briefly it is a vehicle developed for the sporting country gentleman to hunt with. Let's assume that definition or use has gone by the wayside many years ago. Basically, now it is a sports car with a station wagon type back  -  a speedy grocery getter, so to speak.

Remember the Volvo 1800 (the Saint's car)? Remember this derivative........

......this 1800 ES is one of the earlier modern day types of shooting brakes. There have been many concept cars done on this theme, but very few have actually made it into production like this Volvo. A recent example was this Audi TT conversion from 2007......

 Not sure why Audi flirted with this body style, but it was never produced. Unless of course you consider the sold in Europe only VW Scirocco, which seems to be close to this Audi concept in design and might even have been a result of it.

Shooting brakes seem to have had much more of a place in England and Aston Martin has produced a small number of these customs over the years, like these two.......

Even Ferrari has tried their hand at this as their new FF shows. An ultra quick bread van? Also, BMW has produced the odd scary looking version based on their Z3 and Z4 models. You don't see many around and with good reason, as they were worthy of contempt, at least as far as looks go.

American shooting brakes have been nonexistent, although a couple of concepts have done the auto show rounds, like this late '70's Firebird Type K. I have a model of this one and reportedly, it came close to being added to the Firebird's line up.......

Or this purely concept Mustang from the mid '60's......

Rumour has it that is was done for a Ford designer, but you'll see a few around, since an aftermarket supplier (Intermeccanica?) did a conversion kit. Good looking until you see it straight on from the back.

So what is this bit about North America finally getting their own shooting brake? Take a look.........

Callaway, the manufacturer of hotted up Corvette's over the years, has been given the green light to start production of this 2014 Stingray conversion beginning in January, 2014. Not a big conversion, it will be sold for about $16,000 over the price of your Corvette donor car. Sure is better looking than the FF or those horrendous Bimmers. Now for sure this will not be the car of choice for your avid NRA member, since this conversion is meant to be more aero, not a carrier of assault rifles for hunting rabbits and squirrels.

A new idea? Not entirely, as way back in 1954, GM's Motorama concept car show, surprised everyone with a production car based concept, called the Nomad and it was on a Corvette body. It did get produced in 1955, but as a full sized Chevrolet station wagon.........

Everything old is new again?

Until next time...........