The Shooting Brake Is Making A Comeback

This week saw spy shots of Mercedes’ new CLS with a bigger boot. Usually, any saloon or hatchback that comes with a bigger boot is classed in the UK as an estate and estate cars are never usually very cool. They were bought by anyone wanting to lug loads to the dump, collect tons of flat pack furniture from Ikea or for extra space so the dog can come along with the family. But the CLS is a four-door coupe officially which means the CLS seen here is a Shooting Brake.

Here’s a little history lesson. ‘Shooting brake’ is a term to describe a two-box car body style that combined coupe features and estate features. The name ‘Brake’ in this case doesn’t mean the brake for stopping a car though. It was a name for a large carry frame with no body used for ‘breaking in’ young horses or to be used to carry people back in the 19^th century. ‘Shooting Brake’ was originally used to describe a vehicle that carries a driver and gamekeeper in the front with up to six hunters in the back on benches being able to shoot whatever they were hunting for from the vehicle. The term was then later used to describe custom built luxury estate cars used by sportsmen that wanted to carry themselves and their equipment in style.

Examples of the shooting brake in the 20^th century include the Ferrari 365 shooting brake and Reliant Scimitar GTE. Princess Anne had a few of those you know! There were several shooting brakes from time to time but they weren’t that popular and then shooting brakes were off the scene for quite a while.

But this year, Ferrari resurrected the shooting brake in the form of FF. A controversial but in my opinion successful move by Ferrari to create a car you can take four people and lots of luggage to the Alps on holiday very quickly and in style. Genius idea!

Since the FF I have seen that Ferrari might have started a trend here. Fisker introduced a gorgeous shooting brake version of the already stunning Karma called the Surf, a coach builder called Carrozzeria Touring made a one off shooting brake version of the Bentley Continental called the Flying Star and, as I mentioned at the beginning, Mercedes will soon release a CLS shooting brake.

Will they be successful? Well I certainly think so. I am a bit sick of boring yet practical estate cars. They are very good at their purpose of course but they’re not the kind of cars I would have as a bedroom poster. These recent shooting brakes though deserve to have a place on my bedroom wall.