• Audi Shooting Brake

The term Shooting Brake or Shooting Break is referred to a particular body variant of an automobile: A coupé with a hatchback that looks more like a station wagon than a sedan with its tailgate. In contrast to the usual combination a Shooting Brake is designed overall sporty and elegant.

Break or identical Brake was called in English earlier wagons held up in front to break in wild horses (to break) and to slow their urge to move (to brake), so they were used as workhorses. Since the carts could easily be damaged, we did not use that one much needed for other purposes. You knew Brakes possibly with light, often with variable bodies, for example, only served, the carry necessary for the hunt. Such a vehicle with which you went to the shooting (german shooting) called a Shooting Brake.

Motorized Shooting Brakes reached in the 1960s and 1970s, some spread in the UK, where they were, for example, bought by rural residents, among whose lifestyle hunting and/or the sport of golf, and then fell into oblivion.

The classic shooting brake is derived from the Aston Martin DB5, the 1963 David Brown had built for his personal hunting needs. Twelve specimens of this design were produced. In this category, there are few cars. They are mostly one-offs or prototypes that are now collectors. Occasionally you can find them in an exhibition. A Reliant Scimitar can also encounter on the road, however, quite. The list of Shooting Brakes also contains Prototypes such as the lost Pininfarina individual pieces Riviera, Olgiata and Maremma.

One of the best selling models of this kind was the Reliant Scimitar GTE with a body made of glass fiber reinforced plastic and a Ford six-cylinder V-engine with 3-liter displacement and 140hp (103 kW). Even members of the British royal family (and Others Prince Philip and Princess Anne) possessed and drove several Reliant Scimitar. Often they were but no production cars, such as the Scimitar-Reliant, from the 1968-1986 in at least five different versions were built around 14,000 copies, but conversions of posh two-seaters and sports cars.

An early manufacturer of such Custom Car Shooting Brakes was the company Albion Motors of Scotland. There are examples of conversions of the Bentley S2, the Mercedes S 300, the Ferrari 400 and the Aston Martin DBS to the Shooting Brake. This converted into a kind of hearse Jaguar E-Type, the protagonist Harold can plunge at the end of the cliffs in the cult film Harold and Maude, is also a Shooting Brake.

Volvo brought in the summer of 1971, the 1961 series-built Volvo P1800 than P1800 (nicknamed Snow White’s Coffin) hatchback and tailgate glass on the market, but came off the line until the end of 1973. In the spring of 1986, the manufacturer with the Volvo 480 once a vehicle of this category on which was built almost ten years.

Italy’s representative of the shooting-brakes was built by the spring of 1975 until the end of 1984 Lancia Beta HPE (High Performance Estate, from 1982: High Performance Executive). The bottom group came from the Beta Berlina (sedan), while the body represented an extended version of the Beta Coupe. The front section up to the B-pillar and the engines were taken over by the coupe except for small details.

In Germany especially, the Company Arden (Jaguar XJS) and Artz (Audi quattro, Porsche 924 Carrera GT, Porsche 928 and VW Scirocco) made with their shooting brake custom made attention.

In recent years, several new models have appeared again, referred to by the producers as a shooting brake. From late 2005 to mid-2010, there was the Alfa Romeo Brera by a shooting brake version of the Spider.

Volvo came in late 2006 with the three-door C30 a compact car out, but this can be considered as the successor of P1800 ES and 480 by its shape.

Since summer 2008, Volkswagen is building the new Scirocco also a coupe in a shooting brake-like style.

At the Geneva Motor Show in March 2011 Ferrari FF presented with a four-wheel drive and four-seat shooting brake with a 6.3-liter twelve-cylinder V-engine.

In October 2012 came the Mercedes-Benz CLS, a hatchback variant, which is called Shooting Brake open in the name.

Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake (seit 2012)

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