Contemporary Usage and Examples
While continuing to include station wagons, the term shooting-brake has broadened to include sporty two-door hatchback (i.e., three-door) variants. By 2006, The New York Times described a shooting-brake as "a sleek wagon with two doors and sports-car panache, its image entangled with European aristocracy, fox hunts and baying hounds," In 2011, Top Gear described a shooting-brake as "a cross between an estate and a coupé".
Automotive designer Peter Horbury described the contemporary three-door shooting-brake, saying
it is not your basic two-door hatchback, a body style with different proportions: the hatchback tends to be squatty, while a shooting brake is sleek and has "a very interesting profile." It makes use of the road space it covers a little better than a normal coupé, and also helps the rear person with headroom. Especially in America, every member of the family has their own car. The occasional use of the rear seat means you can do one of these cars, even if such a wagon lacks the everyday practicality of four doors.This trend was apparent by 1960, when Sunbeam marketed a limited-production three-door variant of its two-door open sports car, the Alpine, with leather interior and walnut trim, selling at a price double its open counterpart and marketed as a shooting-brake.
Between 1965 and 1967 a limited number of variants, marketed as shooting-brakes, were custom manufactured by coachbuilder Harold Radford, based on the Aston Martin DB5, DB6 and DBS. Aston Martin itself later manufactured in-house a limited production shooting-brake variant of its Virage/Vantage.
Other three-door cars combining elements of a wagon and coupé have been described but were never formally marketed as shooting-brakes, including the Reliant Scimitar GTE (1968–1975), Volvo P1800 ES (1972–1973) and Volvo C30 (2006- ). Torque magazine said the Mini Clubman (2008–) is "essentially a shooting-brake design."
In 1999, Popular Mechanics presented a 2001 Jaguar five-door shooting-brake concept variant of its S-Type, saying the term shooting-brake was interchangeable with station wagon.
In 2004, Chevrolet presented its Chevrolet Nomad concept, which the New York Times described as "fitting the formula" of a contemporary shooting-brake, and in 2005 Audi presented a Shooting Brake concept at the Tokyo Motor Show. The 2006 Renault Altica concept was described as a shooting brake, and in 2010, Mercedes presented its concept Shooting Brake. In 2011, The New York Times described the newly introduced Ferrari FF as a shooting-brake.
In 2005, Chrysler, at the time Daimler-Chrysler, introduced the Dodge Magnum as a five-door station wagon, saying it had a "shooting-brake profile". At the time of its introduction, a journalist commented that the Magnum looked "like a European 'shooting brake' custom fabricated for a car nut like the Sultan of Brunei's kid brother."
In 2011, Fisker presented the Surf at the Frankfurt Motor Show—a four-door plug-in hybrid described by Automobile as a shooting-brake.
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