 |
Estates are cool. Estates are hip. Estates, so the pundits tell us, are the next big thing, set to usurp the bloated MPV as the middle-class lifestyle vehicle of choice. Not just any old estate, mind. The 21st century estate must be trim and athletic, have the right badge and exude all the right healthy lifestyle values. Voluminous carrying capacity is a mere side issue with this new strain of sporty lifestyle estates, aimed squarely at thirty-something types in denim shirts who want a car that looks as composed in the office car park as it does with a couple of mountain bikes on the roof.
In the '50s, '60s and early '70s, we used to know where we stood with estates. They were nothing to do with happy smiley people and their happy, smiley offspring enjoying 'leisure time'. Estates - European estates, that is - were either austere and basic (they were nothing more sophisticated than vans with side windows tin-snipped into place, although they sometimes came half-timbered for that 'man about the manor' look) or they were posh and hand-made, produced by a cottage industry of coachbuilders. The English did this especially well, with companies such as Friary, Farnham and Crayford producing (expensively and in small numbers) specialist load-carriers based on mainstream big saloons. The manufacturers were happy to farm the work out, because the numbers weren't big enough for them to make money out of it.
This look at rare estates embraces some truly exotic examples of the breed - the Aston DB5, for example - and some that are ostensibly humdrum but, in their way, no less fascinating, such as the Austin 3.0-litre. Some are one-offs that deserved a better fate - the Lancia Olgiata is a prime example - others were produced in a small series and got no better than they deserved.
|
