Return of the hunter - carmakers revive the shooting brake

By Thomas Geiger Dec 20, 2006, 5:38 GMT

Ingolstadt/Gaydon - Carmakers are always on the lookout for a new market niche and they seem to have struck gold again.

The aim is to set a new trend in the crowded sector for sporty compacts and this time around it is the turn of the old shooting brake, a style of car which enjoyed its heyday before World War II.

The modern shooting brake is a two-door coupe with a squared-off back. It is now being marketed as a lifestyle estate combining practicality with sporting panache.

The shooting brake concept has set the design world buzzing, but as Stephan Laing, who works for the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust in Gaydon points out, the style of car first emerged at the turn of the last century.

'The shooting brake was the very first type of estate car,' said the expert, recalling many of the constructions of yesteryear, some of which underscored their rustic pretensions by incorporating decorative wood panelling on the exterior of the bodywork. Others were roomy enough to seat four aristocrats and their fox hounds.

'As the name suggests, the shooting brake was designed to transport a hunting party to a shoot,' said Laing. Back then, the models offered were usually based on the larger chassis offered by upmarket manufacturers such as Rolls-Royce and Lagonda. 'The term is used today to describe a much broader range of vehicles, including station wagons and sports-car variants.'

New life was first breathed into this motoring segment about a year ago when Audi unveiled a shooting brake concept at the Tokyo car show. The vehicle shares the same platform as the TT which was introduced only a few months earlier.

The 4.19-metre long concept car boasted 255 litres of luggage space, which could be expanded to a generous 730 litres by folding down the rear seats.

The car shares many components with the A3 and TT but there is no official word on whether it will ever grace the showrooms. New bodies for the TT are in the pipeline, however, and as one industry spokesman pointed out, carmakers rarely go to the trouble of building a concept without any thought of production at some stage.

If Audi's plans sound a little vague, the same cannot be said for those of owners Volkswagen. The Iroc study weighed in at the Paris Show last September, a lurid green showstopper designed to fill the gap in the range left by the demise of the sporty Scirocco many years ago. Marque boss Wolfgang Bernhard praised the concept as the 'sexiest set of wheels VW has ever come up with.'

With its two doors, cut-off rear treatment and a massive, hexagonal-shaped front grille flanked by sloping headlights, the Iroc has a 'mean look' and also follows the shooting brake-formula. The side elevation shows a lean, muscular shape shod with 19 inch wheels.

Another contender is the Skoda Joyster unveiled as a design study in Paris and the prototype of the new Lancia Delta HPE, which boasts four doors and a silhouette inspired by sporting estates of the past which offered more interior space than a standard coupé, say sources at Fiat.