Shooting Brakes, Estate Wagons, Station Wagons (all the same vehicle). Rootes
built Hillman Wagons from 1948 onwards and there were custom bodied Humbers in
the early fifties. The early (up until 1957) Minx wagons were two door and
based on the sedan. In 1955 Rootes introduced the Hillman Husky-a shortened 2
door wagon. With the introduction of the Series I Minx in May of 1956 (as a
1957 model), Hillman offered a 4 door wagon based on the sedan's 96 inch
wheelbase. This was offered through 1962 when it was replaced by the Super
Minx station wagon. The Super Minx wagon carried on through 1967, actually
being built and sold after the Super Minx sedans were discontinued.
A new Hillman Wagon was offered in 1968 based upon the the Hillman Hunter
sedan. These were sold in the USA as Sunbeam Arrow station wagons for only
one year (1968) and were in fact the only Rootes cars imported for that year.
The wagons continued to be built until the body style was discontinued.
>From 1957 Singer Gazelles shared bodies with the Hillman and also offered
wagons. The Singer Vogue, based upon the Hillman Super Minx, also offered
wagons. The final Singer Vogues and Gazelles were based upon the Hillman
Hunter body and also offered station wagons until they were discontinued in
1970.
Humber began offering factory built station wagons with the new Hawk and Super
Snipe models in the late fifties.
I could probably write a long article on this, but the above is a quick
summary.
Jan Eyerman
(past owner of a number of Hillman station wagons)
JACranwell@aol.com wrote:
Denis,
I'm pretty sure that Rootes did make some shooting brakes, but I thought
these were later than the '60's. For example, I beleive there was a Hillman
Hunter shooting brake, but in the early '70's.
I'd be interested to know the outcome of this story.
Julian.
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