12 bargain wagons that aren’t your conventional estate car

Estate cars have been a stalwart of the car world for almost a century; first introduced via aftermarket add-ons to morph a Ford Model T into a workhorse, the bougier, more family-friendly wagon really got into business in the 1930s. But while their immediate impression is of something more sensible and practical than a standard saloon, carmakers are pretty good at twisting a whole new design language (and marketing lexicon) out of an elongated body. Shooting Brake, SportCross, and Sport Turismo are all much more inviting that mere ‘estate’, no?

The latter is the work of Porsche, which first applied it to the Panamera in 2017. A car that – alas – is no longer sold new. Perhaps it’s because the Turismo added precious little extra luggage space to the regular Panamera, but we’d argue it looks cooler while feeling a bit more geared towards family getaways in its back row seating options. The 454bhp 4.0-litre V8 turbo in the nose of this £51k GTS should play its part in soothing the kids’ impatience, too.

Precisely half that sum secures you this CLS 63 AMG with a curvaceous boot. Perhaps this represents peak premium German niche-busting; Mercedes offered this CLS Shooting Brake at the same time as both an E-Class wagon and oddball R-Class people carrier. The CLS is by far the slinkiest of that trio, however. And while its luggage volume dawdled some way behind a contemporary E-Class, a booted CLS could still pip an Audi A6 Avant or BMW 5-Series Touring of its time.

With a design spun from the spectacularly German sounding Mercedes-Benz ConceptFASCINATION it also looked fabulous in all its forms, though as a TopGear.com reader it’s clearly an AMG you need to hunt down. The 5.5-litre bi-turbo in this ’63 produces 576bhp and hustles the car – and its original equipment Mercedes-Benz dog guard – from 0-62mph in under four seconds. Yikes.

BMW’s twist on the shooting brake is weirder still. The M Coupe’s story is a curious one, reportedly originating from a skunkworks operation led by exec Burkard Göschel. He called upon after-hours workshop time to cure the inherent softness of the contemporary Z3-based M Roadster – with a fixed roof. The end result justified any engineer subterfuge, being almost three times stiffer than the soft-top and receiving rave reviews in comparison. But the M Coupe looked indisputably bizarre by the time it made production.

Thus-nicknamed ‘clown shoe’, a cult following has inevitably followed, and M Division’s oddest design is now drifting quickly away from attainability – unless you’re willing to take a punt on a higher mileage example.

Okay, we’ve moved slightly away from bargain used-car forecourts here. Any praise of the shooting brake concept has to acknowledge Aston Martin’s commitment to the game, however. Previous decades had spun one-off Vantage and Virage wagons for affluent buyers, but in 2019 we got a proper, official production car thanks to the weird and wonderful work of Italian coachbuilder Zagato.

The contemporary, 5.9-litre V12-powered Vanquish received a hefty makeover, morphing it from a subtly gorgeous device into a pugnacious three-door replete with Zagato’s trademark double-bubble roof and theatrical lines. It’s only a two seater and you won’t be stuffing it to the gunwales for a week in the south of France. But as an improbably gorgeous device to whisk you down to a luxury Riviera hotel, it looks unrivalled.

A more practical choice was offered by Maranello. Yep, this is a Ferrari with comfy back seats, a useable boot and – as very, very subtly hinted by its name – four-wheel drive. Useful for when the Route Napoleon’s still got some morning frost on its surface.

Yep, this was Ferrari’s first production 4x4, albeit with its 651bhp 6.3-litre V12 powering the rear axle under most circumstances; with suitably low grip beneath, the FF could shuffle up to 20 per cent of its power to the front wheels, but an Audi Allroad wannabe this was not.

Yet its 450-litre boot (seats up) beats the claims of a Ford Focus, while 800 litres with the back row flipped makes this a genuinely pragmatic choice if you aren’t precious about what you fling in the back of it. At a mite over £100,000, though, we suspect you still might be.

A mere quarter of the FF’s asking price can procure you something much, much rarer. We’d wager you’ve seen far more four-seat, 4WD Ferrari wagons on Great British roads than you have svelte Genesis Shooting Brakes, and that’s arguably a shame. The Koreans’ attempt at luxe is now fully electric but initially landed on British shores with an arrestingly styled bunch of petrol and diesel saloons to take on the German establishment.

Tucked on the configurator was a terrific looking G70 tourer, and this launch edition in striking red (and with smooth diesel power) ticks a lot of unusual but appealing boxes. “Please try and find a higher spec, better looking, diesel G70 at anywhere near this price,” the ad somewhat bizarrely pleads. Or you could save the hassle and just buy this one.

Yet the Genesis wasn’t South Korea’s first go at a distinctly European recipe. The Kia Proceed matured from a subtle, warmed up hatch to a swoopy, warmed up estate in 2019. Available in reasonably potent GT form, it carried the look and feel of a cut-price Panamera Sport Turismo without feeling especially bargain bin.

It launched in short order of the heroic Hyundai i30 N and carried much of the same composure (their chassis boss is the same fella) while rattling your spine far less and using notably fewer gallons of fuel. All with a 600-litre boot (or nearly three times that with the seats down) to claim most of the practicality of its sensible Ceed Sportswagon sibling. That didn’t offer a 201bhp 1.6-litre turbo engine or 0-62mph in seven (ish) seconds, however. A Proceed GT can be yours now for just ten grand.

In a similar vein to the CLS further up the page, this VW-badged Shooting Brake had competition in its own showroom from not only the contemporary Passat estate, but a plethora of MPVs and SUVs. Indeed those with a deep, insatiable desire for a practical Volkswagen were served exceedingly well only a few years ago. A far cry from today’s picture.

Very few of those options offered what the mighty Arteon did, however: the same, 316bhp 2.0-litre petrol turbo, 4Motion four-wheel drive and paddleshift ‘box as a Golf R, without carrying over the same, somewhat yobbish image. Quite a Q car, then, not least with claims of 0-62mph in 4.9s and a 155mph top speed. There can be few more discreet ways to blast down the Autobahn to your Alpine retreat.

One of the original shooting brakes (even if it doesn’t bear the name), the gorgeous little 1800 ES continues to educate Volvo styling to this day. Or so the Swedes claim. But which self-respecting car designer wouldn’t have one of these pinned to their wall to inspire their sketching? A spin-off of the P1800 coupe, it’s arguably even prettier, the frameless, entirely glass rear opening clearly leaning more into style than sagacity.

It still proved useable, though, and its layout went on to inspire further two-door Volvos in a similar vein – modern C30 included. With just 125bhp and a three-speed auto ‘box, it won’t be quick, though we don’t imagine you care. Produced for just two years (and around 8,000 units), you’re snaring some proper rarity for your £17k.

Can no one simply use the word ‘estate’? This list proves just how inventive carmakers can be when they want to sell practicality with a healthy sprinkling of allure. Even sensible ol’ Lexus got in on the act in the early Noughties with its curiously penned IS300 Sportcross, the wagon version of its first European-centric model.

And never mind its more capacious rear; within its angular front end resides an actual 2JZ engine, a 3.0-litre unit with a modest 211bhp though clearly the potential for significantly more if the Toyota Supra tuning market is anything to go by. Whether such high jinks are appropriate in a £2k wagon that’s been cherished for the last 20 years, we’re much less certain.

Or you could have an early Noughties wagon whose performance feels glorious right out the box. The Alfa Romeo 156 Sportwagon was a superbly designed estate car to begin with; the GTA exquisitely pumped up its aggression to subtly hint at the 250bhp, 155mph potential of the glorious 3.2-litre ‘Busso’ V6 engine beneath. Many folks would pay the £11k asking price for that one component alone.

Okay, it’s front-wheel drive, and most owners chased an aftermarket limited-slip differential to markedly improve the way it steers and handles. “A proper red-blooded Italian sports car that happily seats four,” TopGear.com nonetheless claimed of the 156 GTA saloon way back in 2002. In Sportwagon form it will also haul along a decent pile of their stuff.

We drew you in with the word ‘bargain’ then paraded an Aston Martin Zagato and Ferrari FF before your eyes. Our bad. Just three grand, though, can snare you this delightful Mini Cooper Clubman. It’s a slightly more obtuse way to celebrate 25 whole years of modern, BMW Mini production; a car that weaves together the brand’s typical agility with an atypical amount of practicality.

You can’t reverse too close to a wall if you hope to safely open its double back doors. And its asymmetric side door will forever feel on the wrong side of the car for British kerbside parking. Yet the Clubman, for all its faults, is a little charmer. While you can get fully juiced up John Cooper Works versions (not to mention numerous diesels including an actual, panelled Clubvan), we’ve decided to stick with a relatively base-looking 1.6-litre Cooper in a beige-ish silver to give it a decent shot at blending into traffic.