WOODIE CAR CLUB

 Shooting Brakes - the original SUVs 

 By Colin Peck, chairman of the Woodie Car Club

 The term ‘Shooting Brake’ is still banded around today by some misguided auto makers, yet most seem to have forgotten that the term was born in the 1920s and was used to describe the original sport utility vehicle in an era when the line between cars, vans and light commercials was blurred. My interest in the subject began in 1998 when I found a 1950 Austin A70 Countryman estate car on a website in Canada and thought it would make an interesting restoration project.

As I delved into the subject it was obvious that the survival rate of wooden-bodied shooting brakes, estate cars and station wagons, generically known as Woodies, has been pitifully low in the UK. Exposed wooden framework (usually ash) and utility construction, coupled with a necessity for re-varnishing every couple of years to keep the damp out meant that few examples completed their first decade without terminal decay setting in.

Historically, the two biggest markets for Woodies were the US and the UK. While US Woodies can trace their roots back to the open-sided ‘Depot Hacks’ which were the forerunners of the modern taxicab, British ‘Shooting Brakes’ were built for conveying wealthy land owners and their guests on shooting parties. During the 1930s cheap US-built Ford V8 Woodies were imported to the UK and set the scene for the utility or dual-purpose vehicle that was part car, part van and even part bus.

Birth of the utility vehicle  

It must also be remembered that shooting brakes and utility-brakes were legally classified as commercial vehicles, and therefore restricted to a maximum speed of 30mph, on any road! A contemporary road test in The Autocar magazine, of the then new 1937 Ford V8 Woodie speaks volumes of passenger comfort, luggage carrying capacity and the vehicle’s ability to gobble up mile after mile with ease, with an effortless 60mph cruising speed. The same report also mentions the tester’s continuing worry about being stopped by every village policeman he passed for exceeding the 30mph speed limit for light commercials.

While Woodies followed a fairly natural course of evolution during the 1930s, the outbreak of WWII in Europe during 1939 saw the introduction of tough new legal measures in the UK, which were to change the course of Woodie history. The first of these measures was the introduction of petrol rationing, so that more fuel could be diverted to the war effort. The initial allowance for private motoring equated - depending on model of car - to enough fuel to cover between 100-200 miles a month. Commercial vehicles, on the other hand, got a larger allowance, which suddenly made ownership of a shooting brake (legally classified as a commercial vehicle) a rather more attractive proposition.

Tax exemption for Woodies

By July 1940 the British Government had taken over stocks of all new cars and summarily banned their purchase by private individuals, except under special circumstances. And by October that year production of private cars was stopped altogether, so that carmakers could give their undivided attention to the production of heavy equipment for the war effort.  

 At the same time, The British Government introduced a new form of retail taxation, known as Purchase Tax. This was levied at 33% on the price of all new cars (providing, of course, you could lay your hands on one), but not on commercial vehicles - another major plus point for owning a Woodie. In the years that followed a number of perfectly healthy saloon cars – providing they had not been requisitioned for War Department service - were driven, or most likely pushed, into the workshops of local coachbuilders across the UK. They would then have the rear half of the body cut off and replaced with more appropriate commercial bodywork.

Many were converted into wooden-bodied utilities as with supplies of metal being diverted to the war effort, the conversion of ash-framed bodywork work was a simple screw and glue job. Some of these conversions were crude, while some were on a par with the work of the best coachbuilders.  Many of the larger-engined, gas-guzzling 6cyl and 8 cyl American cars, such as Buick, Dodge, Hudson, Packard and Studebaker - that were so popular on pre war British roads - were summarily converted in this way.

Many large cars that were required by the War Department were turned into ambulances, mobile canteens, vans and even light trucks.  Once hostilities ceased, and these service vehicles were no longer needed to perform the same role, then it was relatively easy to convert such vehicles into shooting brakes.

Shortage of conventional bodies

The first post-war Government budget was issued in 1945 and this saw the retention of purchase tax (PT) on private cars at 33%, while commercials and shooting brake derivatives remained exempt.  A number of factors combined to make Woodies an extremely popular mode of transport during this time.  

 Firstly, Britain had a rich heritage of small commercial coachbuilding firms whose experience in buildings van, truck and bus bodies made them perfectly placed to capitalise on the demand for new vehicles. While there were severe restrictions on the availability of new cars, there were no such restrictions on new commercial chassis and chassis cabs and so these provided the basis for large numbers of woodies.

In fact, many specialised manufacturers, such as Alvis and Lea-Francis found that chassis production often outstripped the supply of bodies. The solution was to supply chassis direct to local coachbuilders to have wooden-framed shooting brake bodies built. Many leading car dealers also had contracts with local coachbuilders, whose work usually went un-acknowledged.

Auto makers also took to branding their factory-approved estate cars as ‘utility’ models in their advertising and literature, as if to re-affirm their tax-free status. However, the quality of workmanship, and particularly the materials used, to construct some of the Woodies produced to exploit this tax loophole was often suspect.  Some utility vehicles were built as cheaply as possible, often with opening rear side doors omitted, or sealed shut, and the fitting of rear doors instead of split tailgates.

Lea-Francis took the ‘utility’ theme a stage further and built Woodie vans, many of which omitted rear seats and side windows completely. These vans could, and frequently were, latterly upgraded to estate car specification. 

 Factory-approved Woodies

Austin was one of the first manufacturers to launch its own factory-approved Woodie, after tying up a deal for the construction of 250 Austin 16 shooting brakes with Papworth Industries in Cambridgeshire. While Alvis didn’t offer its own ‘approved’ Woodie, Lea-Francis did. After having a number of 14hp chassis bodied by a variety of bodybuilders, the Coventry car maker tied up a deal with AP Aircraft of Coventry to build its regular saloon bodies, as well as a large number of ‘utility’ shooting brakes.

Records show that more than 1,000 such vehicles were constructed between 1945-54. The car-derived Austin A70 Hampshire pickup chassis cab proved particularly popular during this time and a number of bodybuilders emulated the A70 Countryman that Papworth Industries built after Austin had ceased production of the 16.

It was a time when everything from Bristols and Bradfords through to Willys and Wolseleys ended up as Woodie-estates. I’ve not yet come across a Foden or a Scammell bodied as a Woodie, but that’s only a matter of time. One of the first post-war legislative changes to affect the future of the Woodie came in 1947 when purchase tax was introduced for the first time on all estate cars.

Some manufacturers responded by finding loopholes in the law which allowed them to modify bodywork so that the vehicle conformed to a description laid down for commercial vehicles, and thus continue their tax-free status.  Such modifications included reducing the number of side opening doors from four to three – usually achieved by fixing the offside rear side door in the shut position – replacing the rear tailgates with doors and removing the rear seats.

Beginning of the end

After decades of building vehicles with separate chassis and bodies, the British motor industry increasingly moved over to the mass-production of unitary-construction cars in the early 50s and this, more than anything else, finally killed off the coachbuilt Woodie.  Sales of Woodies had never been high, when compared to the volumes achieved by saloon cars, and when PT was imposed on commercial vehicles for the first time in April 1950, some manufacturers saw sales fall even further.

Both Alvis and Lea-Francis were hard hit, yet Austin soldiered onto until 1954 when the last separate chassis A70 Countryman rolled off the production line. Although the era of the coachbuilt Woodie ended at this time, the previous year Morris Motors had introduced its mass-produced Minor Traveller which was to make Woodies available to the masses, but that’s another story.