Shooting Brake

Podcast Episode: 0217
Where did all of the sport wagons come from?

    How did we go from panel vans to the sleek wagons?  AutoLooks takes a look at the evolution of the shooting brake wagon, to see where it came from and why its still kicking around even with the fall of the wagon market.  Listen in to hear the whole story.

​     They come off as one of the coolest looking wagons around. Shooting brakes yeah, they're cool, and if you've never seen one, you really need to, because if you're one of those people that just think, ah, station wagons are so outdated and so like 1960s and 70s, then you haven't seen a shooting brake. Essentially, a saloon version of a station wagon. The shooting brake is a lot more than what you really think it is. It's cool, it's great and it's versatile, and a lot of companies out there have considered bringing even some of their best sports cars into the shooting brake world. Today, it seems like a lot of car companies are starting to see the cool side of the wagon industry as the shooting brake is making its way back. So today, sit back and listen to AutoLooks as we take a look at the shooting brake wagon.
 
     Welcome back to the AutoLooks podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings and go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all, car companies from around the globe, all on the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. 

​     So, like I said, shooting brakes If you don't know what a shooting brake is, go online and check it out. They're some of the coolest looking wagons. Originally, shooting brakes were only two-door wagons. That's it, that's all they were. In the very beginning of the shooting brake industry, they were essentially built to be panel vans. Before vans were out, they added panels to station wagons for cargo deliveries. Go back to the original 50s. You get the Pontiac sedan delivery and the Ford Courier. They were shooting brakes. Sure, vans were starting to come around, but the most versatile vehicle back in the 1950s was the station wagon. We didn't know about vans; we didn't know about panel vehicle. We had been doing it this way since the inception of the automobile and now, since we have actually started to break out different sections of the marketplace into trucks, sedans, station wagons, vans, sports cars, we started utilizing them for more around the world. Originally just created as a panel van vehicle, shooting brakes and its original concept were built for the delivery service industry, and that's pretty much it. It really wasn't until 1953, when Chevrolet released the Corvette, that the shooting brake industry really took hold.
 
     People saw the Corvette and thought it was great, but in the back of somebody's head they went, huh, I wonder, if we put a hatchback on this thing, we can go further. You have to remember at those point in times people were buying some of these vehicles and it was their only vehicle. Well, corvette is great, but it's not very versatile. I can't go and get groceries in it. I can't go for a long trip in it. It's a sports car Go from point A to. But if I put a hardtop on it and extend the back, I can get more space out of it and I can go further. I can do more stuff. This is cool. We should do this.
 
      But we just released the Corvette. Do we want to taint its name with a station wagon? So, Chevrolet sat back and thought about it. Should we give the Corvette a wagon version? No, we're not going to do it. We're not going to kill the amazing car we just built. We created the corvette and everybody wants one. We're not going to add another model to its nameplate. Screw that. You want to create the shooting brake version of the corvette. Find another way to do it. Tell that to an automotive designer. They're going to look at you and be like oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch, this Along shows up the Chevrolet Nomad, built off of the original concept platform of the Corvette shooting brake. Yes, if you go back and look at the concept for a Corvette shooting brake, you'll see a lot of similarities between it and the Nomad. They changed the front end to more of the Bel Air so that there wouldn't be confusion between the Nomad and the Corvette. People wouldn't think, oh, it's just a more versatile Corvette. But they built the Nomad for the consumers of the Corvette A two-door station wagon. 

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​     This is long before the day's hatchbacks. So back then this was a shooting break and from that day forward this was a market that was going to grow and become bigger and eventually somebody was going to utilize it for the greater good. Well, General Motors and Ford kept utilizing it. You get the Pontiac Safari and even you look at the Mercury Voyager. Yeah, mercury used the Voyager name before Plymouth. Really wasn't until the 60s that people started looking at the shooting break for sports cars. 

      ​Ferrari had released the Daytona and a rich businessman came up to them and said I love my Daytona, but I want more space. Ferrari said what do you mean? You want more space. He's like I want to be able to store more stuff in it, me and my friends go. I want more space for everything. I want to be able to travel in this thing. I want to be able to go out on the weekend with all of my luggage and be able to bring something home. Ha, Ferrari kind of laughed at the idea.
 
     But it got them thinking and these automotive engineers said how can we give this thing more space? And one of them remembered the Corvette and said Chevrolet thought of doing this with the Corvette, essentially just putting a hatchback like a wagon style on it. Why don't we try that? Well, they did and they built one the Ferrari 330 GT 2 plus 2 shooting brake. Yeah, it may have been a custom coach-built project by Vignale, but it was a Ferrari shooting brake, one of the very first dedicated large scale GT cars from Ferrari. Ferraris always had GTs. It's grand touring, cruising cars, but this is the first time they had one that was more versatile. Now Intermeccanica tried to do this with the Mustang. They took the Mustang and gave it a shooting break back. Even Ford considered doing this at one point, kind of like how Chevrolet looked at the Corvette and said this is a great thing, let's make as much money off of it as possible. And Ford thought of that. But again, they thought smart and they said we don't want to destroy what we have and what's great. So, they didn't do it, they left it alone. But they allowed these coach builders like McNally and Intermeccanica to do this for custom work.
 
     People but not everybody could sit in the shadows forever. Reliant from Great Britain said you know what? There is a group of people out there that love sports cars and want them to be more versatile. We're going to give the world the Scimitar and the Scimitar GTE. We're going to give the world a dedicated shooting brake. This isn't just a hatchback sports car; this is a shooting brake. This is what the world needs. We need a versatile sports car, something that's easy to bring stuff in and out of. Let's do it, and they did it. 

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​     Eventually, Ferrari would follow up again with the 365 GBB Daytona shooting brake. And along came Jensen in the 70s who did it with their GT. Ford may have never built a Mustang wagon, but they built a wagon on a future Mustang platform. The Ford Pinto Squire is essentially a shooting brake two-door wagon and it's a shooting brake on a platform that eventually spawned the Mustang II. So essentially there was a shooting brake Mustang in its history. People won't call it that, of course. People don't even call the Mustang II a true Mustang. I'm one of them, but hey, they thought it might be cool. The 60s were cool, cool and people were trying these things. But the 70s things were getting bigger. Cadillac was building the Fleetwood Estate. They didn't put a flat back on their station wagon, they curved it out. But now this is more of a saloon style and a station wagon. This is where shooting brakes really started to take off. They were going from two to four doors. That was odd. We all thought shooting brakes were only two doors. No, no, no, no, no. It all has to do with its profile and Cadillac was doing this with its coupe profile at the Fleetwood Estate. Ford again would look at this for the Mustang II concept. Now it's kind of funny because they actually built a Ford Mustang station wagon and they really didn't need to because they had the fort pinto squire. 

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     If you go over to the other side of the pond, to Australia, you'll find some pretty cool shooting brakes. They fell in love with them. Where Australia had the Ute, they also had the shooting brakes. They had the Holden sandman and the Chrysler drifter. These were dedicated two-door shooting brake style vehicles built for the market and built for consumers who love them. If you've watched the original Mad Max movie, he actually has the Holden Sandman. If you see the inside of it, you start to see how the shooting brake in Australia was like the cargo van in North America. People were utilizing these things for traveling and living in. They were amazing. They were cool. It was it. These shooting brakes were the awesome, awe-inspiring camping vehicle. The Holden Sandman was it. Holden would eventually bring the Sandman back in concept form in the early 2000s. Wouldn't actually bring the car back, but for a short time during the 70s people fell in love with the shooting brake style and more of the standard class was able to have it.
 
     The Nomad was gone, but then still, the shooting brake style would never leave us and eventually more people would want them. You get custom shooting brake styles of Bentleys, of Jaguars. People wanted them, and especially in the luxury world, because they wanted that amazing sports car. They want to give up their two doors but they also didn't want to give up their weekend adventures. So, the rich, but not super rich would only want one vehicle. They would get a shooting brake style vehicle commissioned. Ferrari would eventually do this in the 90s with the 456 GT Venice for a custom-built customer, only building a few of them, but they wanted them. 

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     By the late 80s the shooting brake scene was taking a back seat Unless you were driving a Jaguar or Bentley. Nobody wanted them. But then Nissan said Hey, we got these tiny little sports cars and we know people want more space in them, kind of like the original Nomad. People want more out of what they have. And with the sports car craze booming during the 80s and 90s, Nissan would go on to give their Pulsar a hatch. The EXA Sportback or Nissan Pulsar Sportback would give life to a new entry-level shooting brake to the world. Gio would eventually do this with the Storm hatch as well, giving the entry-level world a small hatchback sports cars, giving life to these new shooting brakes. BMW would follow up the Z3 with the Z3 M Coupe shooting brake, giving the world one of the first production-based shooting brake sports cars First one nearly a decade.

     But from there things started to go downhill. Two doors were moving out and nobody wanted two-door cars anymore. The shooting brake was dying out. How could we keep it going? Well, Ferrari, naturally, would be there. The FF came to life out of necessity. Ferrari needed a new GT car and wanted something a little bit more versatile. People were starting to look at sedans. Since Porsche brought out the Panamera, it was now considered bringing out the Panamera Sporturismo, a station wagon variation. 

     Ferrari didn't want to get into the sedan or SUV craze at the beginning, so for it, they gave the world the Ferrari FF. They gave the world a shooting brake. Hell, they did it before, back in the 60s and 70s. Why not do it again? The world loves shooting brakes and they see them as a sport vehicle. So, Ferrari brought us back those shooting brakes. Eventually, Zagato would do this with the Aston Martin Vanquish as well, giving us more shooting brakes for the luxury sports car market.

     ​Yeah, fortunately, the Sandman would never return, as Holden would eventually kick the bucket. Return, as Holden would eventually kick the bucket and all our hopes were put on one model from Mercedes. The CLS was a brand-new saloon model off its S-Class and because it had such a nice coupe profile, Mercedes, knowing that people in Europe love wagons, decided to give us the CLS Shooting Brake, a brand new four-door shooting brake variation of the CLS, bringing to the world a new form of luxury wagon. Eventually, others would take notice Kia would give us the Proceed wagon, the Buick Velite would show up the Volkswagen Arteon shooting brake and nowadays the Zeeker 001 and Genesis G70 shooting brakes. They're back Sport profiles of the station wagon Wagons are dying in the world as nobody wants them. 

​     Nobody wants a flat back station wagon, kind of like a flat back SUV is dying out in the world of CUVs, SUVs. They all want coupe profiles. They don't care that you lose some of the interior space in a shooting brake, they just want it to be sleek and cool and give you the perception that it's a fun, cool, fast vehicle, when in all reality it's not. It's a shooting break. It's still a station wagon, unless it has two doors like the Ferrari FF or the Holden Salmon. It's not a cool sports car shooting break, it is a sedan shooting break, and that is what the CLS and CLA shooting brakes have given us Hell. Lynx has given us the new Animal.
 
     A new electric car company is building a shooting brake as well. Rolls-Royce is the Spectre shooting brake and Vanwall, a new company to the sports car industry, is bringing back what the Nissan EXA Sportback gave us in the Reliant Scimitar a small shooting brake vehicle Similar to that of the Volkswagen Scirocco. Was it a hatchback or was it a shooting brake? It's hard to classify those ones. But the shooting brake it's the anti-wagon.
 
     When the wagon industry started dying out and the van industry was taking it over it dearly didn't see like it would ever survive and nobody would ever find a way to keep it around. But in all reality, giving it a coupe profile and making it into a shooting brake is one way to save the wagon market. Today it seems to be the only way you get a station wagon in the world. This is with a shooting brake. A standard wagon model no longer exists. But will somebody keep a two-door shooting brake alive? The Ferrari GT4 Lusso is the last production one around. Unless the Vanwall Vanderval can really take the market out, shooting brakes may only be for select individuals. Entry-level is out of the question for shooting brakes these days, as Volkswagen has pulled the Arteon shooting brake from the market. Today it only exists in luxury format, but in all sense, it still gives in luxury format, but in all sense, it still gives us something to hope for a fun, fast station wagon. And that's all we really wanted A shooting brake. 

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      From its humble beginnings as a panel van to becoming the last savior of the wagon industry, tell us, do you think the shooting brake will survive into the future, and can the electric industry keep it alive? Well, the Chinese automotive industry has shown us anything. A lot of their station wagon formats are looking more like a shooting break and less like a station wagon. So, the future of the wagon rests in the arms of the shooting break.
 
     So, if you like this podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any major social feed or streaming site that you've found the Autolooks podcast on, and after that, hit the like button at the bottom Like, share, comment, hell.
 
    Send this freaking podcast out to your friends, your families, your neighbors, anyone you know who likes automobiles, and ask them have you ever owned a shooting brake? You ever been in a shooting brake? Do you think they're cool, or do you think station wagons are bland, boring and should be left in the past, as a lot of people think they are. No, we don't think so, so tell us your opinion, click the like, click the send, click the share and follow us on the AutoLooks.net website and the AutoLooks podcast and after that, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings and go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all on the AutoLooks.net website, the AutoLooks.net. So, from myself, Everett Jay, the AutoLooks podcast and the AutoLooks.net website, strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that the shooting break is going to take us on in the world of wagons. Thank you.
 
Everett J.
#autolooks

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