doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com English Shooting Brake

John from U.K. ; a Lanchester! They cost more than a Rolls I believe. Bet you wish you still had it? Lagopus.....

The current Griswold vehicle is the Tartan Prancer, the "Honda of Albania" featuring the best in Albanian technology including a water fountain and double rear view mirrors.
https://youtu.be/uFHehn0UOLU

Not to mention the Swastika App on the remote!!!!!!!! URL=http://s26.photobucket.com/user/ken1okie/media/Remote.jpg.html][/URL]

I think that may be true of Lanchester's early (independent) days. However, they became (with Daimler) part of the BSA group (as in gunmaking BSA) and whilst the Daimler brand remained 'upmarket', the Lanchester brand was used on a range of cheaper cars. The model my grandparents had was a 10 H.P. model, and as such had a basic 4 cylinder engine of about 1.5 litres, but coupled with the Daimler/Lanchester 'fluid' transmission (which was bacically an epicyclic gearbox with a fluid coupling replacing the clutch). It would have been a low to medium priced car.

BSA's chairman was a man called Sir Bernard Docker. His wife, Lady Nora Docker has specially made gold trimmed Daimlers with fancy Zebra skin upholstery. Many of Daimler's traditional customers (including the Royal family who had always been Daimler customers) thought this very vulgar and moved to other makes, notably Rolls Royce and Bentley and the Daimler brand struggled (though the actual cars were quite good) and was eventually bought by Sir William Lyons of Jaguar fame.
The late Queen Mother remained loyal to Daimler, but H.M the Queen has used Rolls Royce and later Bentley for her formal State cars, and nowadays seems to use Range Rover for less formal use.

Interesting history. I have seen a BSA made car; quite a small saloon and I expect quite rare. Of course they were more famous for their motor cycles. Ah, the good old days when cars had starting handles, an owners manual and toolkits provided. Lagopus.....

My "shooting brake" as a teenager into my early 20's was a 2 door 1961 Willy's Jeep station wagon 4WD with a heavy duty winch. The rear seat would fold forward, giving extra space for loading up gear and occasionally a deer or an elk or two.

The 2 door made it a bit more controlled, when hunting with a couple of hunting buddies and an elk or deer was spotted driving down an old N ID logging road.

It now sits in one of my dad's outbuildings and is taken out a few times a year around the property looking for dead/dying trees, for firewood.

I think the original article that Gary posted is fair enough as far as the post WW11 motor driven vehicles are concerned but it doesn't come anywhere near a history of the type before that, and back into the horse drawn age.

The term "brake" always applied to passenger carrying wagons although these could vary in seat numbers, weight carrying capacity and the number of horses used. As a boy in Ireland I used to help prepare a two horse shooting brake that carried twelve people. It hadn't been used for its original purpose since the Muckross Estate passed from private (and sporting) hands into State ownership.

When I knew it, it was used to carry hotel guests into and through Killarney town and up to the Gap of Dunloe. Other vehicles in the cart shed were termed the wagonette and the side car which latter would be referred to as a jaunting car by what John the coachman called "ingorant people". It was a real thrill to bull up the brake, the horses and their tack, a grand sight when they all moved off. So a shooting brake was a good sized version of a wagon, big enough to take six or eight Guns, a few ladies, guns, and possibly cartridges. My one had a canvas roof and detachable canvas sides that were more ornament than use; if you object to getting rained on in Ireland you've come to the wrong place.

A horse drawn "car" at least in Ireland was always a small vehicle drawn by a single horse or pony. I'd take a station wagon to be a bit smaller than a shooting brake, designed as they were to carry a few passengers and their luggage across town. Might be two horses but usually just one (depending on terrain).

In Scotland many years later I saw garrons being used to take deer off the hill, an equally delightful experience, that mixed the pleasures of being around horses with life in the shooting field.

Anyway, I think this points up that the mechanical men have taken these bits of nomenclature that once held precise meanings and scattered them all round the factory.

Ingorant people.

Thanks, Eugene. Speaking of nomenclature, how did the name "brake" come about?

SRH

Here's some pictures of that. Very cool. I don't know if all the horses are actually "Garrons" or not.

It sure beats the hell out of a picture of a Whitetail strapped to a four-wheeler.

http://chrishewittphotomedia.co.uk/Creativity.html

https://heavywhalley.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/wet-wet-wet/

Not to be confused with Donna Garron, who no sane man would ever confuse with a horse...

http://ink361.com/app/users/ig-1071142338/donnagarron/photos/ig-1037236199731007426_1071142338