Revolution in Car Design is Old Hat

Apart from the dramatic relaunch of Jaguar cars, actually that should read jaGuar which looks very weird if you haven’t got the right font. Anyway another of the many strange developments in the design of cars was the advent of the ‘estate car’. This grandiose concept originated in the 1950’s ish. Presumably manufacturers wanted to inject style into the sales pitch. Buy the car the landed gentry use to trot about their estate, complete with dogs, guns and any other vital component of their lifestyle. Highly likely the sales pitch meant to entice we mortals living more modest lives where estate cars are ideal to carry recycling to the yard or collect a new fridge without having to wait or pay for delivery.

Following the initial launch of the estate car; with their ability to ferry endless odds and sods and a few passengers, the sales guys needed to refocus with another version to move further upmarket and recapture the landed gentry who felt their status was under threat from the hoy polloi. Behold the emergence of the ‘shooting brake’. Aimed at the guns without roses chaps, with loads of land these beauties were in essence an estate car with a wooden back end exposed framework. A car made to look like furniture at which Chippendale would have marvelled.

A classic example of the shooting brake was the Austin Morris “Countryman Shooting Brake”. The production lines were awash with lumps of wood being stuck on the outside of the bodywork like some giant cockup, affectionately known as the “Woody Countryman”. Rumour has it the original designer, an ardent fan of Superman’s external underwear went on to write assembly instructions for IKEA. Owners of shooting brakes who wanted to make a statement with their peers loved them until they realised why they found a tin of varnish supplied with new cars. Cleaning the beggars was a nightmare with more corners and crevices than a Georgian window. Luckily car washes hadn’t yet been invented, you can imagine how they would have struggled.

Then came the next bodywork evolution. The sales guys realised the world was desperately short of cars with vinyl roofs. Adding 10% to the sale price you looked the bees knees, right up to realising vinyl roofs didn’t like sunlight, heavy rain or frost. The word glue featured heavily in the after sale market. The black turned to grey double quick time and suddenly the 10% premium became a 20% discount in the resale value.

Thus buying a jaGuar car comes with a degree of trepidation as well as a significant look-at-me factor. Hopefully this great British car brand will survive but unfortunately only with those who have £100,000 handy. Or you could buy a 1948 shooting brake and a tin of varnish for £14,000.